


Four Secrets

by SirHestiaJones



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mental Disintegration, Other, Substance Abuse, Violence, pottermore spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-07 20:25:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1912641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirHestiaJones/pseuds/SirHestiaJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Peter does not hero-worship James, James’s life foreshadows Harry’s, Remus hides his Patronus for love, and Sirius is raised by a loving family, how differently would their lives turn out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Rat - I

“To James and Lily,” said Sirius, raising his glass. 

“To James and Lily,” went the chorus.

Peter was sitting on the front most table, facing the bride, the groom, the best man and the bridesmaid. There were no parents, since Lily and James were orphans. In fact, no relatives were present. Peter could have invited his--neither James nor Lily would have minded since they liked Mr and Mrs Pettigrew, and Peter was funding their wedding, after all--but he hadn’t wanted to be embarrassed, and they were bound to be embarrassing.  
He dragged his eyes away from Sirius’s face, from the smile that was given so naturally, as though he had nothing to weigh him down. Wine swirled in Peter’s mouth as he mulled over how easily deceived humans were, and how quickly they forgot. 

The wine was an expensive specimen; he had imported it from a virtually unknown rural part of France. No one he knew in the British wizarding world--and he knew all who mattered--had heard of it. The exquisite refinement and rarity of his choice would be lost on his friends--this also, he knew, and so he had not enlightened them. He watched the chief bridesmaid’s lips connect with the rim of her glass. The wine travelled down her throat in long, obscene gulps, but after her thirst had been quenched, she gave no reaction of surprise. Nothing that suggested she had just consumed something that cost more than her dress, jewellery, shoes and bag put together.

A wave of nausea passed over Peter. He put down his glass and got up. Out of habit, he dusted off his silver grey robes, which were spotless and immaculate. Out of habit, he walked out of the sitting area with a slight spring in his step, as though he was pushing his height up just a little. Peter was a diminutive man with a thin, unremarkable face and slightly curly hair. His general appearance had that ridiculous ability to slide off one’s memory as soon as the meeting was over. He was aware of it, and it was an awareness that sometimes stung him, and it was the sort of stinging he deeply resented. “You were born to stand out,” his mother had told him from an early age, and everything he had done in his childhood, he did to fulfil her prophecy. He had read all the first year books before his letter arrived; he had practised most of the basic spells secretly with his father’s wand. He had even dabbled in Muggle craftsmanship, a talent his liberal parents encouraged. He had painted and sculpted, and the first bit of magic he performed with his wand was making his handmade toy aeroplane fly.

He was utterly stumped when the Hat did not put him in Ravenclaw.

The Hat was wrong, he intoned as he approached the group of cloned mannequins he had created to act as servers. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. 

With a flourish of his wand, he animated the mannequins. They sprang to life, and like a trained army of waitresses, expertly arranged the food and started carrying them to the guests. James and Lily had told him all this extravagance was not necessary, Remus had shown a mild interest in the execution of the replicating spells, and Sirius had called him a show-off. But Peter did what he had to do. Though he was unnerved by the sight of several glazed, unseeing eyes considering him with obedient silence, he had spent two sleepless nights perfecting their functions. And so, the Hat was wrong. No Gryffindor he had met was cursed with that kind of dedication. 

_If I had been Sorted into Ravenclaw_ , he went back to musing, but he broke away from the thought, chastising himself for the wishful thinking. If he were to write an autobiography, that thought should have been the title of the book. _If I Had Been a Ravenclaw_. But the book would not be a faithful account of actual events; it would be a memoir of what should have been, and therefore, a retelling of his lost life. A re-imagined Peter. A better Peter. A Peter without James, Sirius and Remus. An individual Peter. A Peter without secrets.

+

It started in the early weeks of the second academic year at Hogwarts. Peter had spent the better part of the previous year in the library, observing with well-hidden interest the growing friendship of the other three boys in his dormitory. Why he had not yet been asked to join the gang concerned him more than it should: he and they belonged to different species of wizards, and he was used to being a loner. He was an only child, as self-content and self-sufficient as they came. But so were James and Remus, and Sirius was as good as. Peter knew the Black boy’s story. Though Sirius had a younger brother, he lived with an uncle.

Because none of the boys had said or done anything that might explain why they weren’t his friends, Peter had harboured his own theories on the subject. Perhaps, they thought he was too rich. Perhaps, they thought he was too bookish. These were the only reasons he could build on, but here again, his logic was frustrated: Sirius’s uncle was a wealthy man, James’s family was wealthier than his, and Remus’s fervour for reading sometimes outdid Peter’s. In the end, he gave up, spending his energy on revising for the exams, which he meant to top. Whatever limitations they may have perceived, he was at least the superior student. Sure enough, during the summer, McGonagall sent a small note along with the results, congratulating him on scoring the highest in all the subjects.

The satisfaction of his victory outweighed all other disappointments, sustaining him happily, until the bullying started. It was a bunch of older Slytherin boys, whose parents were family acquaintances, although Peter was certain his father and mother did not enjoy their company or reputation. At first, the Slytherins did nothing overt, but after the fourth time, Peter was sure there was a motive behind their turning up in a gang everywhere he went, and glaring and muttering at him as he walked past. 

They cornered him one night as he was returning from the library. 

“Hello, Pettigrew,” said the tallest boy airily.

Peter did not reply. He was thinking how he could retrieve the wand from his pocket without them noticing. 

“Oh, no need to be scared off your tits,” the boy laughed. “We just want to congratulate you on your recent success.”

After a moment’s silence, Peter mumbled a thank you. 

“Say, there’s this book from the Restricted Section that we need badly for homework. How about you get it for us, eh?”

“If you need it for homework, surely you can get a signed request from the professor?” Peter asked, momentarily puzzled.

“We just need to check some facts,” said another boy, who was shorter and burlier. “Don’t want to trouble her.”

Peter was a lot of things, but stupid was not in the list. In a firm voice, he replied, “I’m sorry. I can’t and won’t do it.” He made to move, then to his consternation, found his way blocked by a wall of bodies. They were converging on him. 

“Times are changing,” said the tallest boy. “Better pick a side now, Pettigrew.”

“We know about your parents,” said one of the others, but Peter forgot to move his head to check which one had spoken. His eyes were transfixed on the tall one, who was standing right in front of him. The boy was so tall he was blocking the light of the torch behind him. His features were strangely still clear in the semi-darkness. The acne-ridden face was split in the middle by a bulbous nose. The lips were thin and wide. Dark eyes considered him balefully under the shadows of two immensely bushy eyebrows. Years later, Peter would be crouching in a sparse closet with this boy, hiding from a battle raging outside their sanctuary. Every second of the few minutes they were trapped in the closet, Peter would debate killing him right there, but before he could act, the battle would have stopped with a final scream and thud, and they would both Disapparate--Evan Rosier, the boy, because he knew they were outnumbered, and Peter, because he couldn’t risk exposure.

“They’re Muggle-loving scum, aren’t they? If your family isn’t too careful--if _you_ aren’t too careful--there’ll be consequences.”

They pushed a folded piece of parchment into his sweaty palm and left him, alone and trembling. The rational part of him knew he should run to McGonagall or Dumbledore and inform them about what had just happened; although it was their collective word against his, Peter was a star student. Besides, why should he lie? 

His instincts nevertheless kept him rooted to the spot. He was thinking of his parents, of their harmlessness, of their loosely protected mansion. That morning, there had been a story in the _Daily Prophet_ about a murdered couple. They had been missing for two days. The Aurors discovered their bodies in the basement. The paper used a grainy-on-purpose picture of the crime scene, but Peter could make out the legs of the wife in the background, behind the Aurors, sticking out of her robes at incongruous angles.

He made his way back to the dormitory, ignoring the greetings of the boys on the way to his bed because he could feel the bile in his throat; if he opened his mouth, he would surely puke. After they had left for dinner, he wrote a letter to his parents, instructing them to set up wards around the house, telling them simply that he kept hearing rumours at school, that they couldn’t be too careful these days. Then he opened the parchment. There was only one line written on it: _A History of Magical Tortures and Curses_ , Persecus de Torquemada. 

He floundered for a moment. What had the hat said? 

_You have plenty of courage. Your choices will always be the hardest._

He ripped the parchment into shreds. The rest of the night was spent silently memorising the defensive spells he had learnt, both within and without the school. When morning came, he felt prepared enough to take all five of them on his own, although he wasn’t sure if it was his confidence or exhaustion talking. Nothing happened that day, or the next. A week passed without incident, then a month. At last, when Peter had begun to let his guard down, he was ambushed yet again on a similar night. He had unwittingly taken the same route from the library; the corridor where they had been waiting was the same dark and deserted one. Only, the expressions on their faces were fouler. Peter was sure, irrationally sure, that he would die; his wand was drawn before he himself registered it, and the Slytherins were blasted off their feet. 

It took a few moments for all of them, Peter included, to recover from the shock of the attack. He finally came to his senses and started to make a run for it, but the tall boy tripped him. His ribs collided hard with the cold stone floor. There was no time to even howl in pain; the other boy had grabbed hold of his ankles. Before the rest of the posse could join the tussle, Peter made a quick decision. He turned around, and feeling simultaneously regretful and vindictive, cast a slew of hexes at the general direction of the Slytherins. The air was soon full of their screams and groans. 

The tall boy, in whose grip Peter was still trapped, would not accept defeat easily. His already pockmarked face was beset upon by fresh angry pustules. “You little shit,” he muttered as he raised his fist to punch. 

Only one curse came to Peter’s mind. He knew casting it might get him expelled, so lethal and abhorred it was. He had come across it in the very book they wanted him to borrow. 

 

Curiosity had consumed Peter to the point that he had to wheedle Horace Slughorn, the Potions professor, to write him permission to browse the Restricted Section. 

“Which one is it?” Slughorn asked, suspicion lurking behind the grandfatherly air. Although he adored Peter for both the boy’s lineage and talent, the Restricted Section was no joke.

“ _Brunhilde’s Art of Natural Healing_.” Peter had chosen the book after careful consideration. It was restricted only because it was the original copy, written by Brunhilde herself. It was three hundred years old and in severe danger of falling apart. The librarian did not trust the students to be careful enough with such a precious relic. 

“Ah!” cried Slughorn approvingly. “Fascinating book, that one! I read it when I was a student here, you know. Do remember to lift the pages with minor levitation charms, not your fingers. Brunhilde was rather protective of her work. She wouldn’t have any Muggles discover her secrets. You’ll find the first few pages of the book are charred, because some Muggle tried to read it. The silly fellow received quite the shock of his life when the individual pages caught flame on their own, and he gave it away to the Wise Woman who lived in the woods. The Wise Woman, as you know, was Lorne Monkshood, the witch who prepared the first Veritaserum.”

Peter, who had listened patiently, pretended to be surprised. He had already conducted an extensive research on Brunhilde and Lorne Monkshood, hating the idea of going on a mission half-arsed. Slughorn gave him the permission to read in the Restricted Section, which suited Peter just fine. Brunhilde’s book was humongous. Coming out of the library--or sitting inside it--with the book on oneself would have attracted unwanted attention. He had no desire to let the Slytherins find out he was venturing into the Restricted Section.

The following day, he skipped Herbology, feigning illness, and went straight to the empty library. The librarian let him into the Restricted Section with a customary dubious look at the permission note. Peter took Brunhilde’s book out of the shelf, placed it on a stool, and cast a self-rewinding levitation charm on it. As the pages turned on their own with a convincing rustle, he noiselessly searched for _A History of Magical Tortures and Curses_. He found it nestled against _Moste Potente Potions_. 

The small size of Persecus’s compilation astonished Peter, who had expected something as gigantic as the one he was supposed to be reading. As he skimmed through it, he realised the length and numbers of a book were irrelevant, when the little it contained was enough to cause so much damage. He felt sick just looking at the illustrations, all of which were moving in their own ghastly loop. On one page, a woman lay on the floor, her head rapidly devoured by a dragon, the long, scaly neck of which protruded from its victim’s belly. On another, a man’s body was being flung against a wall of rusty iron spikes. 

What was Dumbledore thinking, keeping a book like that inside the castle? 

This question had plagued Peter ever since. Was the book at Hogwarts because it was the safest place? But there were still risks. Anybody lucky enough to get a permission note could get into the Restricted Section and notice the book. Anybody could absorb certain details from it, and recall those details at the right (or wrong) moment, and fall into the temptation of using them.

Such as Peter, in that instant he was about to get a few teeth knocked out by a Slytherin boy thrice his size. His lips had almost started moving to utter the incantation, when the other boy was roughly pushed off him. Remus, James and Sirius were there, suddenly, it seemed, for Peter in his pain and humiliation had failed to notice their arrival. 

It was five boys--hexed but still physically stronger--against four tiny second year students. They appraised each other. 

“Sod off, Rosier,” said Sirius. Peter was taken aback by how much force the young voice carried. He blinked and glanced at the three boys on his side. James had the same hardened look on his face as Sirius did; in fact, he appeared to be shaking with some terrible internal conflict. Next to those two, Remus’s habitual composure seemed rather out of place.

Rosier, the tall one, laughed; it was the sort of laughter one used to cover fear and uncertainty. His eyes, and the eyes of his friends, were on Peter, who was feeling smaller now that his fleeting rage had deflated.

“You won’t be so lucky next time, Pettigrew,” said Rosier. He turned to his friends. “Let’s go.”

“Fucking Mudblood,” spat one of the Slytherins in Remus’s direction as they stalked off.

Remus, however, ignored the insult and rounded on Peter. “Did you,” he asked, “hex the lot of them on your own?”

Peter nodded, seeing as evidence went against him, while Sirius gave a low, appreciative whistle. James, on the other hand, clapped Peter on the back and cheered. “Way to go, Gryffindor!”

From that night on, they were friends, and there was nothing Peter could do to escape the newly formed and eternally bound alliance.

+

“Nice wine,” Remus said. “Out with it! Where did you get it?”

Peter smiled. “You couldn’t afford it,” he said seriously, though there was no hint of malice in his voice. 

“Upper class wanker,” Remus replied with a grin.

Remus was, perhaps, the only friend he could contemplate without the urge to strike something hard. This lack of animosity itself amused him, for he was unsure what, _precisely_ , separated Remus from Sirius and James; the points of separation were far too many. Was it the fact that he was Muggleborn, as opposed to his pureblood friends? Was it the lack of haste that set him apart from the impulsive forces of nature that the other two were? Or was it, thought Peter with relish, as a brief, electric thrill went through his body, the secret of the smiling young man, which deserved his pity? 

Peter, like James and Sirius, had promised to keep Remus’s secret, just as Remus had promised to keep the secrets of James and Sirius. Peter had sworn to keep it according to the terms of their oath, which were: do not answer when asked for confirmation by others, and do not divulge it on your own. At age thirteen, flushed with boyish love and devotion, the four of them had made their pact, binding it with spells that were only as strong as thirteen year old students could muster (although, in their credit, they were rather exceptional thirteen year olds). As they became older, they learnt more complex magic, and any one of them could have broken the oath successfully. But the Gryffindor sense of honour prevailed, and Peter, on his part, saw no reason to upset the balance on which their friendship hung. If necessary-- _if necessary_ \--he would break it, though he very much doubted the information he had on the other three, so far as their pact was concerned, would prove useful. 

Presently, Remus was approached by one of Lily’s girlfriends for a dance. He graciously accepted it and walked off to the dance floor. Sirius was already there, the chief bridesmaid ensconced in his accommodating arms. The two of them were dancing so close they appeared to merge into a single, thrashing unity. Peter found the sight repulsive. His eyes travelled towards James and Lily, who were gazing lovingly at each other. There was a small twinge in his stomach. He returned to Remus and the girl, to the slight gap between their chests and bellies and thighs: the gap that was always noticeable between Remus’s body and others’, a sacrosanct space his friend maintained to assure no one else was contaminated by his shameful disease.

It made Peter jealous, the way the three of them continued showing their face to the world as though they had nothing to hide. As though they lived clean, honourable lives. Meanwhile, he had to struggle, just holding his own secrets at bay. They had each divulged one and been done with it, and the nature of their secrets had been such that others eventually found out on their own, or had known already, and didn’t hate them for it. Neither James, nor Sirius, nor Remus, could be blamed for the horrendous demons they lived with. But Peter? He concealed so much he was sure he would implode one day, and then-- _and then_ \--they would understand. When all was finished, they would begin to reflect. They would begin to remember, and they would know it had been Peter all along.

And they would begin with what happened in the sixth year at Hogwarts, though why it had happened would be beyond their intellect. They were two-dimensional that way, had always been, grasping at life with eager, uncouth hands, and seeing everything in predictable shades of black and white. _But why would Peter do such a thing? What did_ they _do to deserve it_? Because they would look for specific examples, they would fail to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Peter’s hatred couldn’t be explained by one or two events, although, if push came to shove, he himself might respond that it all started on the night their friendship was sealed. The way they had bustled into the first decisive event of his existence. 

He had had it under control, but when the story spread into their house, it was Sirius and James’s manhandling of Rosier which took centre-stage. Pretty soon, Peter’s part had been removed altogether, and his swashbuckling friends were rumoured to be the ones who had hexed the Slytherins. Who could blame them for this mistake? James and Sirius had been working hard at earning the reputation of master pranksters. Remus was notorious by association. Peter’s existence was keenly noted only by his rivals in Ravenclaw and the teachers. In contrast, people _adored_ James and Sirius; even the teachers found them irresistible, for although their intelligence could not match his, they were still brilliant and adventurous students. 

Initially, Peter did not mind. The type of fame his friends enjoyed wasn’t something he envied, and he was happy just to have them to talk to, to explore the castle with. Besides, their perpetual presence detracted any would-be bullies, so he was thankful for the extra protection. Then things changed. James and Sirius began to catch up with Peter in academics, though how they managed it without putting in the number of hours he did remained a mystery. Sometimes, he would point it out to Remus in amazement. 

“How the hell do they do it?” he cried after one Potions class, in which Slughorn had waxed lyrical about Sirius’s essay on the different uses of foxglove. “They were in detention on Friday! When did they even finish the essay?”

Remus shrugged. “Natural talent, I guess.”

Peter loathed that explanation. Natural talent was something that needed honing, and whatever James and Sirius did wasn’t honing, unless one counted their practical jokes. “I’m pretty sure his mother didn’t sing to him about foxgloves when he was a foetus,” he muttered miserably. 

Towards the end of the third year, they signed their pact. One secret sacred to each person. Four people to bear the burden. James and Sirius beat him in that, too. They both had earth-shattering revelations, after sharing which, they turned to Remus and him and said, “What about you?”

Remus confessed he had nothing yet to share--at least nothing they already weren’t aware of. “I will when I have one,” he said solemnly. There was no embarrassment in that frank admission, but it wasn’t the same for Peter. For reasons he could not explain, he was almost burning with shame. He came from a perfectly normal family. 

His parents were well-off, and they were respected members of the society. They doted on him. He was, above all, a healthy boy, with no affliction worthy of complaint.

He shook his head. 

The matter ended there for his friends. Not for Peter. It was the commencement of a slow and steady erosion of his mindset. 

A dark shadow hung over his two friends, who Peter had realised were living double lives. They were differently coloured now, and the combined greyness of their persons often threatened to overwhelm the surroundings and blot out the sun, so that Peter saw the world revolve around them. For some time, he couldn’t decide if he hated James and Sirius equally, or one more than the other. He thought it might be James, when he made captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team in their fifth year, but then it wasn’t an achievement Peter desired. He was more annoyed of Remus getting the prefect badge, despite being the weakest link in their group. The decision was made for him in their sixth year, though Peter’s bitterness towards Sirius was to intensify before that. 

He had been so proud of being the first among the four to figure out the final step to becoming an Animagus. “This is the part they don’t mention in the books,” he explained. “Your spirit animal is a reflection of your personality. Until and unless you fully understand who you are, you cannot become one.”

“I must be a dog then,” Sirius said, laughing. It sounded like a bark. “You know, Sirius the Dog Star.” In spite of that joke, Sirius wouldn’t try. Neither would Remus, who had suddenly paled. James was the only one bold enough to step forward. 

“All right,” he said bracingly. “So, James Potter, Captain of Gryffindor Quidditch Team, slated to be champions of this year’s Cup, steps forward to claim the Animagus form of a magnificent lion.”

Sirius snorted. Ignoring him, James shut his eyes and concentrated hard, probably picturing himself kissing the Quidditch Cup. To everyone’s surprise, he immediately began to change, not into a huge golden lion, but a majestic animal with a sleek brown coat and huge antlers sticking out of its head. 

“A stag!” Remus yelled. 

James changed back to human form to the sound of Sirius’s whoops. He was grinning. Clearly, he didn’t mind being a stag.

Peter couldn’t wait any longer. He knew what he was going to be--had known since he was a child. It was the eagle, the wisest, most regal bird. The symbol of Rowena Ravenclaw’s house, and thus, her totem. Being sorted into Gryffindor did not destroy the Ravenclaw in him, did it? Yet, when the transformation began, he felt less and less wise, less and less regal. He had always felt so little, so close to the ground, as though somebody had cursed him with a permanent shrinking charm. Was that why he loved everything that flew, and the first toy he charmed, an aeroplane? There was a lack in him, and it was a lack without edges or endings. It gave him pain that he could not endure on his own. He must distribute the pain, he thought as his body shot down in size and fur exploded through his skin; he must give it to others, to make them understand the torment of being him. 

When he looked up, after his personality had been set in stone, he was greeted by the perplexed faces of his friends. He tried to spread out his wings so he could fly over them, but there were none. Instead, he had tiny paws. A strange sensation in his rear suggested he also had a tail. He opened his mouth, and out came a squeak.  
In an instant, he was back as Peter, the human. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. He was terrified of hearing that squeak issue from his mouth again.

The silence in the room was broken by Sirius, who said, in an apologetic voice, “Ah . . . fuck.” It was followed by a round of laughter. 

Peter was too numb to join in, and too ashamed to consider that his friends’ laughter could have been their own way of trying to make him feel better, to make light of the situation. He was busy wondering how to kill himself in the quickest way possible, taking Sirius along with him.

With time, his suicidal as well as murderous tendencies were replaced by a renewed passion for excelling. He conceived the idea of a map of the school, to help them explore the castle and grounds at will. He conceived it purely to satisfy his curiosity about Hogwarts, and he would have worked on it alone if he hadn’t needed their help. His dependency on his friends irked him to no end; whenever he shared an idea with them, the ownership would extend to the group, and James or Sirius would think up ways for abusing it. Predictably enough, on being acquainted with Peter’s idea, James announced they should use it for common benefit.

“It _is_ for common benefit,” argued Peter irritably. 

“I mean, not just for your future bestsellers on the design and layout of Hogwarts’s architecture,” James said. “It’s unfair how one of us has to transform into a . . . thingy every month.” James’s voice went down a few notches on uttering the last three words, as Remus had reminded him with a pained expression they were in the Gryffindor common room. “Think about it. We could use this map to get out of the castle and give our friend company.”

“I veto this,” said Remus at once.

“So do I,” chimed in Peter.

“No way I’m letting you--”

But Sirius had brightened up. “Splendid, Prongs, old friend,” he said, putting on a pompous voice and using the childish nickname James had come up with for himself. “You, however, forget a salient point. No map will help you if you’ve been out of bed--nay, out of the school all night, only to be caught by Madam Pomfrey. Or worse still, Filch. What it needs is an additional enchantment.”

“Like what?” James asked.

“One that allows you to keep tabs on everyone in Hogwarts.”

“No,” Remus cut in before James could speak. “This is illegal, not to mention extremely risky. As your prefect--” 

“--and friend,” Sirius continued for him. He had moved his chair closer to Remus’s, and was now ruffling the other boy’s hair. “You agree to be a cheerful and willing part of it.”

Remus was glaring at Peter, as though everything was his fault, but he couldn’t have resented Peter any more than he resented himself at the moment. He heard the other boys resume the squabble, though he comprehended none of their words. The noise of their debate and the movement of their body were mere assemblages of voices and limbs, carried out to clockwork precision; there was déjà vu, then nausea, then hollowness. Peter felt empty, like the bottom end of an hourglass rendered purposeless because the sand had leaked. 

He laboured on the map out of spite, not caring about his OWLs. It kept his brain sharp and focussed. It also made him restless. He pored over the plans when not in class, frequently assuming his Animagus form to traverse the forgotten recesses of the school. There were entire nights he did not, or could not, sleep. His friends, thinking it was the OWLs, shook their heads at what they thought was unnecessary exertion, since Peter was bound to get straight O’s in every subject. He did not correct them.

At last, the map was completed. They were marvelling at it, the four of them, stunned by the feat they had just pulled off. 

“The key,” said James reverently, “to freedom.”

“We need to protect it with an incantation,” Peter suggested. He stood furthest from the map. He always contemplated his victories from a distance. “The Latin word for map is . . .”

“Too obvious,” Remus said. “Let’s think out of the box.”

“What?” James asked, unaware of the idiom. 

“I mean, let’s do something different. Unexpected. Original.”

“Something ingenious, but us,” Sirius agreed, drawing his wand. “Give me a nickname, Peter.”

“Excuse me?”

“A nickname. You are the only bloke without one.”

“Because I don’t want one. It’s stupid.”

“Excuse you,” James coughed. “Prongs isn’t stupid. Neither is Padfoot, nor Moony.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake!” 

Sirius had earned the nickname ‘Padfoot’ because he had padded feet in his non-human form, and he had chosen ‘Moony’ for Remus. “Why?” Peter had asked, and Sirius had said, “Because he secretly likes to moon people! That’s _his_ secret.”

“What about . . . Jerry?” Remus offered. 

“Why the hell should I call myself Jerry?”

“Er--we have this cartoon show called ‘Tom and Jerry’. Tom is a cat, and Jerry is a mouse--”

“I’m not a mouse!”

“--and Jerry is very clever. He always gives Tom the slip--”

“What’s a cartoon show?”

“Can we watch it?”

“Enough!” shouted Peter. His head was whirling. He hadn’t slept the previous night. “What’s the most distinctive thing about my Animagus form?” he asked, wanting to get over the worst quickly.

“Your tail,” said James. “It always acts as though it has a life of its own.”

“It reminds me of a worm,” Sirius said with a shudder. “Several worms, in fact. Uncle Alphard had a cat. We buried it a little way off the house, and one of the neighbours’ dogs dug it up, and it had these worms coming out of every orifice . . .”

Peter pictured Sirius’s dead body rotting away in a coffin, fat worms wriggling out of hollow eye-sockets and a half-eaten mouth. “Fine,” he said. “Wormtail it is, then.”

“Right.” Sirius shook himself in an effort to get rid of the unpleasant memory, and raised his wand. Pointing it at the folded map, he cried, “Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs . . .”

“Why ‘Moony’ first?” Peter piped up, unable to help himself.

“It just sounds better that way,” Sirius insisted, and so it was.

When sixth year arrived, Peter was more or less resigned to the order of things. James’s Gryffindor team had lost the previous year’s Cup, but they were the favourites for the new season. He was away most of the time, practicing and thinking up tactics with his teammates. Remus had proved to be a reasonably effective prefect, though Peter was privy to how lenient he was to his friends. Sirius was still Sirius, irresponsible, reckless and ‘naturally talented’ (this, Peter always inferred with a sneer). There was consistency in the world, Peter thought, and he could deal with it. This was, of course, just another classic miscalculation. 

One of Peter’s most debilitating weaknesses was his tendency to neglect those aspects of human existence that functioned outside of his outlook. He desired to be somebody’s favourite, but not at the expense of his appearance. He had observed and noted, without envy, Sirius’s undeniable attractiveness. By the time he was sixteen, Sirius had attained a startling amount of physical ripeness. He was tall, lean, hard, and often, Peter couldn’t resist staring at the hair on his friend’s skin. Inordinately long and black, they ran all over Sirius’s forearms and legs and peeked out of his underwear. On hot days, Sirius would sport a ponytail--which Peter found absurd because Sirius could just cut his hair but refused to--and there would still be dark strands running down his neck, gathering into a tip. James, who was taller and worked out more and had messy hair, was not that mature. Remus, whose voice had been the first to change, was not that hairy. As for Peter, his skin was smooth, the hair transparent and meagre.

Six months into the term, Sirius had dated a number of the girls from their years, and a few who were older than him. He earned the epithet of ‘The Beast’, and Sirius, to Peter’s disgust, took it in his stride. He would swagger into the dormitory and regale them with tales of his conquests, their soft lips and supple breasts, their warm thighs. They loved his scars, he claimed, and Peter was confused because to him, the ugly ridges were hints of a troubled past. The minds of females must work differently, he figured, and his hostility eventually extended to them. 

There was only one girl, a Hufflepuff by the name of Betty Hargreaves, whom Peter respected. Their friendship began due to by their being students of Arithmancy, a class that had only four students. Peter’s admiration for Betty was also cemented by her studiousness and cleverness. They spent a lot of time in the library working on their homework together, and Peter enjoyed the ready availability of a mind so eager to learn from him. It didn’t hurt that Betty wasn’t Sirius’s type: she was wholesome and dressed conservatively, making it easier for Peter to see the person in her, not the breasts, waist, or thighs. 

He didn’t tell his friends about her. He supposed he could have told Remus. Unfortunately, Remus had his own issues when it came to girls. The boy avoided them like dragon pox. James, he was wary of trusting, since James was so accepting of Sirius’s philandering, although he had one reservation: Lily Evans was off-limits. Sirius, he definitely did not trust. So, Betty came to be his secret, and if everything worked out well, Peter resolved he would tell them before leaving school. It would astound them that he managed to get a girl, after all. It would be a secret, not as shocking as James’s or Sirius’s, just one Peter would nevertheless be proud of.


	2. The Rat - II

“Thank you so much, Peter.” Lily had extracted herself from James and come to sit next to him. Her cheeks were flushed. She looked virginal and pristine in her elegant white dress. 

It was such a sham, Peter reflected. The business of wearing a colour as pure as white, when the bride was not at all pure. Lily was pregnant. Underneath her brocade shrug, the dress was tight across the waist because her bump wasn’t yet showing, but Peter knew. James had made the happy announcement a month back. 

“It was all I could do,” he replied. He sounded pleasant, content. “I’m sorry your sister couldn’t come.”

“I hadn’t really expected her to,” Lily said. “It’s quite okay. My real family,” she added with a smile, “is here.” 

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Peter stiffened. 

“I’m really lucky to have friends like you,” she said. Her eyes were teary when she got up to join James on another table, leaving behind a flowery smell that made Peter ache.

+

She smelled of flowers--Betty. A big bunch of various flowers. The fragrance engulfed Peter whenever they sat together in Arithmancy or at the library. He would pine for it when they were separated, so he caught some with a spell. When night came, after the others had gone to sleep, he would release the aroma of Betty and drown in it painfully. His longing had taken on a primal, physical turn; sometimes, forsaking his own treasured dignity, he would seek release under the cover of darkness. But Peter wouldn’t allow himself to feel this longing when he was with her; he would suppress the urge to respond to her presence that way. He refused to look at her lips when she spoke. He abstained from glancing at her exposed neck when she sat next to him. If the weather was hot and stuffy, she would come to the library wearing a blouse and a skirt, and Peter would devoutly keep his eyes away from the outline of her curves.

“Do you like anyone?” she asked him one day, apropos of nothing. 

Peter blushed. Knowing perfectly well what she meant, he asked, “How do you mean, like?”

“ _Like_ like,” she said. “As in, like a girl.”

“Why?” 

To Peter’s mortification, his voice came out sounding somewhat defensive. Betty raised an eyebrow. “I mean, why would you like to know?” he clarified in an effort to cover up his gaffe.

“Well, you’re either with your friends or with me,” she said. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. “If you had a girlfriend, it would infuriate her.”

“Then, good thing I don’t have one,” he said. He thought he should add something like, “Because I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” He didn’t, thinking it might be inappropriate. There should be a right time and a right place for admitting such things--except, the right time and right place seemed to elude Peter. Betty did not approach the subject again in the coming weeks, and neither did he. Valentine’s Day came and passed. 

All four boys spent the night of February the fourteenth in their dormitory, each uncharacteristically lost in their own thoughts. James was the first to break up the meditative silence. “Evans won’t go out with me,” he declared, to the surprise of no one. “I don’t know how to convince her.”

“Perhaps, if you stopped existing,” Sirius said helpfully, halting his laughter only when James threw a pillow at him.

“I’m serious,” James continued. “I think--I think I’m in love with her.”

Sirius pretended to retch. 

“You wouldn’t know, Sirius,” Remus muttered from under his duvet. The criticism was so unexpected even   
Peter whipped around to look. “You hop between them too fast to sit back and think about what you’re really feeling.”

“I don’t want to sit back and think,” Sirius said. “I want to enjoy it while it lasts. Merlin knows what’ll happen after school.”

Quiet descended upon them again as they pondered what they’d do after Hogwarts, although they still had a year left. There was a war brewing. A wizard who styled himself as ‘Lord Voldemort’ was creating a great stir in the British magical community, with what was apparently a propaganda to cleanse the population of impure blood. Peter’s parents had discussed him at dinner during Christmas. They called him a ‘madman’ intent on persecuting Muggle-borns and Muggles. 

“I saw his face at the Lestranges’s party,” his father had said. “It was pallid, snake-like. Inhuman. But they were lapping his words up, all of them. Well, we know how stupidly protective a few of us are of blood purity.”

“Purity of blood has little to do with a person’s magical capacity,” Peter commented. “I know a Muggle-born Hufflepuff girl who’s one of the best students in the year.”

“Yes, dear,” his mother replied. “I just wish everybody felt the same.”

Every week, for the past few months, there had been a report of missing people or dead bodies turning up in unlikely places. The entire school was following the news, from first years to NEWT students. Most of them were appalled by it, but a few--Severus Snape of Slytherin and his gang, for example--appeared to be in a celebratory mood. Their taunting o f late had become rather aggressive. Whenever Peter and his friends passed them, someone or the other would say, “Blood traitors and Mudbloods better watch out”, or something to that effect.

James was planning to become an Auror after school. “It’s the right thing to do,” he said with conviction. “I’m not living quietly while some demented twat’s running around ordering the murder of innocent people.”

Which was something Peter would have liked to say, but refrained from doing so because such words didn’t feel right on his tongue. He agreed Voldemort was vile. The man was playing on the sentiments and prejudices of powerful wizarding members for some ultimate purpose. Cunning, yet crass. 

 

“That’s what I’m scared of, Padfoot,” James was saying. “What if I never meet Lily again?”

He appeared to be genuinely worried; the use of Lily Evans’s first name, an intimacy Peter hadn’t noticed before, was proof enough. And now, _he_ was worried. What if he didn’t get a chance with Betty? What if some other boy beat him to it? The thought was unbearable. He resolved to solve this crisis as soon as possible.

“I know what I should do,” he said aloud without thinking.

“Me too,” James added.

Remus volunteered nothing, but Sirius sat up, alert and determined. “I know what _I_ am doing. Gryffindor party this weekend. Prongs and I’ll get the drinks. That ought to loosen everybody up.”

To this date, Peter had attended only one of Sirius and James’s Gryffindor parties, and there had been plenty since the creation of the map. Sirius’s uncle couldn’t send alcohol directly to the school, so he had it delivered to the Shrieking Shack. James and Sirius, who knew how to get into the Shack through the Whomping Willow, went out to collect it, using the map and James’s invisibility cloak. As usual, Peter had a harmless punch and escaped to the library before his friends could notice. He wished he had arranged for Betty to come. He had been racking his brain for some plan, some romantic strategy for asking her out, and decided at last that the best method was the most honest one. He would simply tell her the bare truth. 

After having sat in the library for almost two hours, he gathered his books and decided to call it a night. On the way back to Gryffindor tower, he met Remus, who looked anxious. “Have you seen Sirius?” he asked.

“Not since I left. Why?”

“The idiot’s missing. It’s nearing curfew, and he’s disappeared with a whole case of beer.”

How Alphard Black had managed to send cases of beer momentarily stumped Peter, but his mind returned to the gravity of the situation. If Sirius was found, the whole house would be facing detention, and the Prefects would be in deep trouble. Peter couldn’t deny Remus deserved most of the blame; he had allowed the party to happen in the first place. At the same time, he couldn’t relish the fiasco, because he would be implicated as well. What would Betty think? He had confided in her his future plans. He’d work in the Magical Law Enforcement and run for Minister of Magic. What sort of example would he be setting, smuggling alcohol into the school?

“Where’s the map?” he asked Remus, whose expression hardened. 

“The bugger took it with him.”

“Thirty minutes to curfew,” Peter said, checking his watch. “I know a spell that’ll help. The incantation is ‘ _Homenum revelio_ ’. You stretch out your arm and make a sweeping motion in the air. Like a semi-circle. Wand should be at the level of your waist. Got it?”

Remus nodded and took out his wand.

“Let’s sweep.”

Sirius wasn’t to be found anywhere in the seven floors of the castle. At last, with barely ten minutes to spare, the two had reached the ground floor. They cast the spell again, and there was a brief flare next to the door of the classroom at the end of the corridor. Relieved, they raced towards it, stopping only when the unmistakable sounds of creaking became audible. 

The door, which had a small screen, was a few feet away. Remus’s face was red, whether from the recent bout of exercise or embarrassment, it was unclear. “I--er--don’t want to look,” he explained. His voice was hoarse.

Neither did Peter. Someone _had_ to confirm, though. Exhaling forcefully, he marched ahead, and the first thing he noticed inside the classroom was a large case on a desk. Next to it lay empty beer bottles. Then, two entangled bodies came into view. A boy and a girl. The boy was Sirius, all right. There was no mistaking the ponytail, which was in danger of unravelling; the girl’s fingers were raking through his hair and clutching it so hard. Peter couldn’t make out who she was; only her legs, wrapped around Sirius’s backside as he pumped into her, were visible. 

He had almost turned away in revulsion when Sirius pulled out, and the girl’s face and uncovered breasts became fully visible. It was Betty, the skin around her lips slightly smeared with lipstick, her nipples erect, her blowsy skirt pulled up to the waist. Peter couldn’t move. Their eyes connected. 

He ran, all the way to the tower, then through the common room and into their bathroom. There, he vomited again and again, sticking his finger inside his throat, hoping the violent ejection would get rid of what he had just seen. When it didn’t work, he ran a hot shower and let the steaming water scald him. The dormitory was thankfully empty when he came out. He drank the last bit of sleeping potion he had left, a curative drug that had been prepared for him during his insomniac days, and went to bed.

His dream was merciless. He saw Betty sprawled upon a half-torn mattress on a wooden floor. She was naked, and her long blond hair was in disarray. The normally placid blue eyes burned with a depraved hunger as she beckoned someone towards her. Then, it appeared, neither human nor beast, but a colossal abomination. A column of spikes ran down its spine, ending at the base of the wormlike tail; matted fur covered every inch of its body. As it joined her on the mattress, its body vibrated with a low, anticipatory growl. Peter saw, vividly, the long, tapering, dark pink tongue unfurling upon Betty’s neck, and heard the moan of sinful pleasure escape from her mouth.

The sound of a familiar, loathsome voice jerked him awake. 

“I’m sorry, Moony,” Sirius was saying. There was a note of panic in the slurred voice. “I shouldn’t have--I shouldn’t have got you into trouble.”

The room smelled of alcohol.

“Leave it, Sirius,” Remus said angrily. 

“Really, mate. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, bugger off!”

“It was our third date, and I--I really like her. It isn’t so easy to say these things out loud, is it?”

That did it. Peter sat up--to curse Sirius or strangle him with his bare hands, he didn’t know. He had to get to the bastard. But his feet were heavy. His arms were limp. He was burning inside out. He was burning so hot it was a miracle the two boys didn’t notice the flames. 

“Peter?” said Remus carefully. “Are you--?”

He was out of the bed and moving towards Sirius, who was only now turning around to face him. “You--” Peter began to say, then stopped in horror. He wasn’t looking at Sirius. He was looking at the monster from his dream. Its eyes burned red. Its mouth was curved in a terrifying smile. 

An alien scream flared in his lungs and burst through his throat. The monster sprang for him, and Peter shrank in fear, becoming smaller and smaller till he had vanished into oblivion.

+

James wouldn’t let Peter sit alone. He conjured an extra chair and forced him to join their table. It was crowded. There were seven people sitting on it: the bride and the groom, Sirius and the chief bridesmaid, Remus, his dancing partner, and Peter. The conversation was alive and merry. No one brought up the topic of the Dark Lord, as though it might bring bad luck on the newly wedded couple.

Peter’s mind was elsewhere. To be precise, it was on a recently acquired mask, carefully hidden in his closet. It wasn’t new. Its previous owner unfortunately died in a duel with Gideon and Fabian Prewett. Peter had warned the victim three Death Eaters weren’t enough to defeat the twins, and the poor sod hadn’t listened. The Prewetts were expert duellists, two of the best in the Order of the Phoenix. He had seen them working at close range and observed enough to detect their weaknesses. Yet his knowledge hadn’t been shared with the three ill-prepared oafs who went after the superior wizards in a frenzy, too excited to prove to their master how devoted they were to his cause. He planned to use it himself. 

He had already selected six Death Eaters for the mission, one of which was Rosier. He specifically chose Rosier, hoping one of the twins would finish him off before they, too, succumbed. The seventh man in their army would be himself. He was going only to ensure everything went smoothly. Not a single curse would fly from his wand. He was a Ministry employee, a barrister for Magical Law Enforcement with a promising future, and he would do what he could to protect his prospects.

A cough from Sirius brought him out of his reverie. “Care to go for a smoke, Peter?” he asked casually. They both knew--as did James, Lily and Remus--that Peter didn’t smoke. It was Sirius’s code for: “I have to talk about something important that is related to the Order, but the others can’t hear.” 

Peter nodded, and they got up from the table. Sirius kissed the top of the chief bridesmaid’s head before he departed. 

“What’s happened?” Peter asked, once they were out of earshot. 

Sirius didn’t answer for a while. He was busy lighting a cigarette. It was only after he had released a good amount of smoke through his nostrils that he deigned to speak again. “There’s a spy in the Order,” he said. 

“What?” Peter said. 

“Somebody in the Order is leaking information,” Sirius continued. His grey eyes were narrowed. “The Prewetts were ambushed in their house. Only Order members know where they live.”

“What?” Peter said again, hoping this slow reaction would be convincing enough. “Are they all right?”

“Yeah, they got away. Two of the three Death Eaters were killed in the fight. One escaped, though badly hurt.”

“Thank God!”

“Can you think of anyone?” Sirius asked. He was gazing into Peter’s eyes. His face, however, was impassive. Peter couldn’t tell if he was under suspicion or not. 

“I don’t know, Sirius. I mean, I’ve just heard of it. It hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“It’s bugging the shit out of me.” The cigarette was impatiently flung to the ground and smothered to death under Sirius’s shoe. 

“Whoever it is,” Peter said, “it can’t be one of us.”

“Us.”

“You, me, James, Lily, Remus.”

Sirius was now looking into the distance. His chest expanded and contracted visibly under his white shirt. “Do you know what Remus is doing? Who he’s working with?”

“No.” Here, Peter assumed his trademark sanctimonious tone. “Even if I did, I’m not really allowed to tell, Sirius.”

“Fuck that!” Sirius snapped. “He’s the only one I don’t have a tab on.”

“What about the others? Fenwick? McKinnon? You don’t know them as closely as you know Remus, yet you won’t give your own friend the benefit of the doubt.”

“Tell me there’s nothing suspicious about the way he’s been acting. He avoids us. He especially avoids _me_. I had to track down the wanker to give him the wedding invite. And where has he been living all this time, eh? His old cottage, protected by a shitload of wards. Dumbledore specifically told him to live in Diagon Alley . . .”

“Remus has to get a job to live in Diagon Alley, and no one’s giving him one,” Peter said heatedly. He was getting angry, though not for Remus. He was getting angry at Sirius for his fickleness, for his immeasurable foolishness, for his utter inability to _think_ before he acted or said something. “Everyone’s scared out of their mind. They are playing it safe. They don’t want to mix with the wrong sort. Or were you not aware of that?” 

Sirius had the grace to look ashamed, though Peter could tell he wasn’t fully convinced. “At least, he doesn’t have to suffer the rejection and humiliation in his own house,” he ploughed on. “His mother is ill and needs taking care of. For Merlin’s sake, Sirius, you can be an intolerable arsehole sometimes.”

Sirius cocked an eyebrow at the cussing, which Peter hadn’t meant to employ. Now that he had done it, he felt much better. 

“Fine,” said Sirius at last. “I’ll ask him to move in with me.”

When Peter said nothing for a while, he began to move away. He had already covered some distance before Peter caught up to tell him, in a breathless voice that helped conceal the latter’s private ecstasy, “You know, you always had this habit of suspecting the wrong person.”

+

James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Lily, and Severus Snape were standing in Dumbledore’s office. The Headmaster was considering them sombrely behind his half-moon spectacles. When he spoke, the amusement that always adorned his speech was disconcertingly absent.

“This letter,” he said, “was not written by Ms Evans. She has graciously provided us with a sample of her handwriting. The striking similarities of the two samples notwithstanding, she did not write it.” 

The only other sound in the room came from one of the many silver contraptions at work. The six students were silent.

“Mr Snape received this letter during breakfast, yesterday. I have already . . . conversed with him on the matter, and he’s telling the truth. Which means, neither of them started the prank.”

At this, Lily looked up. 

“Both of you are free to go.”

“Thank you, Sir,” said Lily, and she headed for the door without further delay. Severus Snape hesitated, as though he had something more to say, but Dumbledore’s attention had returned to the letter. Thinking better of it, the Slytherin student followed Lily out of the office.

“Did any of you write this?” Dumbledore finally asked. 

They shook their heads in unison.

“All four of you are aware of how close to death Severus Snape came last night. That would not have been the end of it, either. Your own friend would have been executed. The Ministry does not look kindly on werewolves who attack magical folk.” 

Still, they kept mum.

“I’m letting you go, not because I cannot find out the culprit behind the letter.” The parchment ignited on cue. 

“I’m letting you go, because this is the last prank you will pull. Nothing can impress upon you the devastating costs of your foolishness better than this.” After a brief pause, he said, “You may leave.”

Peter slept well that night, regardless of the bitter quarrel that had ensued between the four of them as soon as they reached the dormitory. He reckoned it was time to start a healthy lifestyle, and that meant getting the right amount of sleep in a day. He was sick of being an insomniac. Most of the previous week had been spent tossing and turning on the bed, while the other boys snored contentedly through the night, much to his chagrin. 

Ever since he fainted, Peter had searched for a resolution. The fever secured him a quiet bed in the hospital wing, which allowed him to think. His first decision was to detach himself completely from Betty Hargreaves; Sirius helped him on that front by continuing to date the girl. His second was to devise a scheme to wound Sirius where it hurt most: the friendships he valued so much. Although it was a few more days before he could think of a strategy that would create maximum damage with minimum effort, when the idea finally struck him, he was astounded by how basic yet effective it was. 

And the full moon was going to rise in just twenty-four hours. He thought of James, who loved Lily Evans, who in turn was pursued by Severus Snape; he thought of the deep, mutual dislike the Slytherin and his friends, James and Sirius, harboured for each other. 

He unrolled a fresh piece of parchment and enchanted it to smell of flowers. 

He took out Lily Evans’s stolen notebook from his bag and opened it. 

He began to write a letter to Severus Snape in Lily Evan’s hand, asking him to meet her at Greenhouse Four after sundown. There, one got an excellent view of the Whomping Willow.

Then, just as soon as dawn broke through the Forbidden Forest, Peter walked up the stairs to the owlery and sent the letter. Two hours later, an owl dropped it in front of Severus Snape. The boy opened it with unbelieving eyes, but Peter saw, quite clearly, a smile emerge on the boy’s lips as he read the content. 

“Pass the bread basket, Sirius,” he said, his secret fashioned at last. “I’m famished.”


	3. The Stag - I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to thank my love, Croll/Crollalanza, for her amazing beta work on this! GO READ HER STORIES!

The period of time that passed between the early morning James and Lily Potter went into hiding and the night of October 31, 1981, lasted months. James counted it in terms of years. He felt there was too much time on his hands. Time spent with Lily, time spent with Harry, and time spent with Lily and Harry. Time spent waiting. Time spent thinking. Time spent doing nothing. Time spent thinking about time spent doing nothing.

Time spent remembering.

The thing was, now that death was an inevitability he had narrowly escaped three times, life had become a priceless commodity. He had understood how fragile human existence was when his adoptive parents and real father died, but it took facing death personally to fully grasp its complications. It was, truly, the end. If there was an after-life, it wasn’t for the living.

Living was a privilege James earned through the sacrifice of his birth parents. He wouldn’t know until he was twelve years old how he had already had a brush with death as an infant. 

As an infant, it would have been kinder, the adult James thought. An infant did not have sufficient memory to understand what it would lose in death. An infant did not know what living was, because living was not just surviving. It wasn’t just sleeping, crying, drinking milk, urinating, and then going back to sleep. Living was also loving, hating, cherishing, regretting. And he had plenty of things to love. He had a wife and a kid. He had friends. He had a cause to fight for. 

He had plenty of things to hate. Humanity disturbed him sometimes, the way people could slaughter each other for petty reasons. He hated power when it was in the hands of the wrong authority. He hated human characteristics like greed, cowardice, jealousy and cruelty, and he hated it when these characteristics reared their ugly heads inside him. 

But the cherishing and regretting—these were his preoccupations when he spent time remembering. 

James had a precise mind. He was talented at compartmentalising. Perhaps, it was the Quidditch player in him; breaking things down and sectioning them off had become a predominant part of his mental make-up. For healthy retrospection, he neatly separated the memorable from the regrettable. He did not allow these two spectrums to mingle. When he thought of Lily, he refused to think of Severus Snape, although their histories were conjoined. When he thought of Sirius, he abstained from thinking of his father. His real father, Marius Black.

+

Eleven year old James Potter lived in a big house with his parents. It had huge grounds and a small lake, and it was well-protected from outsiders. James knew how to swim. He could also fly a broomstick. 

Neither of his parents was physically active, but they were proud of him being so. His mother, Dorea Potter, had never even sat on a broomstick. She always took the Floo or Disapparated. She once told James her family used to own a flying carpet before it was banned—one of the rare moments she mentioned them. Pollux and Cassiopeia, her siblings, loved riding it. Dorea avoided the carpet, too; she was terrified of heights.

Charlus Potter, James’s father, often said the boy was living the childhood he had wanted. He had a weak heart, due to which he couldn’t engage in any activity that required a lot of physical exertion. Unlike him, James was a strong boy. His only shortcoming was his myopia, which required him to use glasses. 

“Can’t you cure it with magic?” he asked his parents, annoyed because his glasses made both swimming and flying somewhat cumbersome. Somebody had to cast fastening charms on them so they wouldn’t slip down his nose or fall off his face.

“Magic can’t cure everything, Jamesie,” his mother told him.

“You both have good eyesight, though!” he said miserably.

“Well, you can fly.”

Limitations were offensive to James. He was too young to look at himself with objectivity, so how could he know he was, in reality, a spoiled brat? The expectation of everything being readily available for him came naturally to his pampered mind. He was a little prince, loved beyond measure by his parents, even the house-elves. When he went to school, he saw no reason why things should be any different. He made a friend as soon as he stepped into the train. He was put into Gryffindor, his house of choice, the moment the hat touched his head. He picked the bed nearest the window, from where the pitch could be seen. He signed up for the Quidditch team and got selected as a standby, a feat in itself considering he was a first year student. Nothing went wrong for James. The lessons were easy enough to grasp, and he did reasonably well. He wasn’t too worried about outdoing everyone in that area—or maybe, he would have, if he hadn’t met Sirius Black.

The Black family was one of the most prominent, oldest and largest families in the British magical community. They were wealthy, and with a few exceptions, extremely particular about whom they married, or which house they married into. Their circle of friends was tight since they were paranoid of mingling with those of inferior blood or status. 

James’s own mother was a Black. Her family hadn’t bothered to keep in touch for decades because they were ashamed of Charlus Potter, and by extension, her. Apparently, the Potter couple lacked proper wizarding pride, donating to Muggle charity and mixing freely with Muggle-borns. 

Sirius Black’s mother, Walburga Black, was Dorea’s niece. Walburga, only five years younger than her aunt, hadn’t spoken to her since James’s birth. This brought James and Sirius together, since the former loved his mother, and the latter loathed his. Sirius lived with his uncle, Alphard Black, who had been blasted off the Black Family tree for adopting him.

“A family tree?” James asked. 

They were on the train—their first ride to Hogwarts. The two of them had an entire compartment to themselves. Sirius had just been telling James all about his old house.

“It’s a tapestry. I can’t remember how large it was. I haven’t seen it since I was six. But it was broad enough for drawing the genealogy of the family. If some Black, or relative, does anything they don’t like, he gets removed from the tree.”

“What do you mean ‘they don’t like’?”

“Marrying Septimus Weasley was good enough for Cedrella Black. The Weasleys are well-known blood-traitors. It helped that they are also poor.”

“What’s a blood-traitor?” asked James, confused. He wondered if Septimus Weasley had betrayed his family in some horrendous way.

“Someone who likes Mudbloods.”

“And what in Merlin’s name is a Mudblood?”

“A Muggle-born.”

“Huh.” James mulled over what he had just heard and concluded, “That’s nasty. _My_ parents like Muggles, too. My dad is always banging on about how advanced they are. He even reads their books. And what’s so bad about being a Muggle-born? Muggle-borns are still magical!”

Sirius shrugged. “No idea. My family’s full of lunatics. They hate being related with anything that doesn’t have magic in it. One of my mother’s uncles was burnt off the tapestry at eleven for being a Squib. Marius Black was his name.”

“Your family sounds like a piece of work.”

“Uncle Alphard is decent,” Sirius said, a tad defensively. “I live with him. He adopted me. He’s no longer in the tapestry.” When James didn’t reply, he hurried to explain further. “I only remember because we had to memorise the names of those who had been struck off the tree. I mean, there are far too many forefathers and foremothers to remember. Who wants to bother with that dragon dung? And I was only six when I left home. And I’m not supposed to be using words like ‘blood-traitors’ and ‘Mudbloods’ because Uncle Alphard says they are bad words, and I agree, because, really, it’s stupid hating people when they’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just it’s shorter to say ‘blood-traitors’ and ‘Mudbloods’ instead of ‘people who like Muggles’ and ‘people who have Muggle parents’, and I reckoned you’d know them as well, since your mother is a Black.”

A slight note of alarm had crept into Sirius’s voice. “My mother hardly ever mentions her family,” James explained distractedly. He was thinking of something else. “And she’s never used those words.”

“Oh.”

James was thinking of how odd it would be to live without one’s parents. To be adopted, to grow up in a house where one didn’t belong. He tried to picture himself in Sirius’s position, and found it bizarre. He didn’t know why Sirius’s own parents had let his uncle take him away— _his_ parents wouldn’t do a harsh thing like that. But he was beginning to understand something about the Black family. Why his mother wasn’t keen on talking about them, why Sirius easily called them ‘lunatics’. In spite of his happy arrogance, James wasn’t a spiteful boy. He was used to loving, not just being loved. He couldn’t imagine why anybody should despise Muggles and Muggle-borns and Squibs so much. They weren’t necessarily bad people.

“You know, I’m probably off the tapestry as well,” Sirius said. 

James came out of his momentary lapse of attention and found Sirius looking out the window, no longer facing him. “That’s good, isn’t it?” he said with a small smile.

Sirius turned, and seeing that James seemed to approve of it, brightened up immediately. “Yeah. It’s fantastic.”

The subject of Sirius’s family would be brought up again multiple times in the coming years. Sirius used them as the perfect example of stupidity and backwardness, indicating in no uncertain terms how glad he was to be shot of them. “Dodged a Killing Curse there!” he would exclaim, whenever the topic of his parents, or anything related to them, came up. Though this was a point that did not require repeated emphasis, James would understand, three years into school, how justified Sirius’s loathing was. 

Unlike Peter and Remus, he didn’t shrink from Sirius whenever this side of his personality came up. In fact, he was the only person who could tolerate his friend at all times. Sirius was generally out of control; shunned by his family, he had been raised by a man who treated him with extreme fondness, and let him do what he wished. His recklessness was a trait only James could get used to, because he too was used to being showered by affection. 

Their similarities did not end there, for James would gradually realise how intertwined his history was with Sirius’s, and though he loved Sirius all the more for it, though his protectiveness towards his friend intensified because of it, he would, until the moment he died, keep it as his most condemnable secret.

+

It was supposed to be Halloween, but to James, it was just one night in a long series of nights. From his window, he could see the Muggle villagers’ decorations. Parents were walking about with their costumed children, asking for tricks and treats. The sight of the pumpkin lanterns made him despondent. 

“James, could you please stay with Harry for a while? I want to clean up the dishes.”

“Yeah.”

He turned around to take Harry from his mother’s arms. Lily looked tired. “I can help,” he said guiltily. “We can keep him upstairs in the cot for a while.”

“I’ll be fine. I just don’t want to leave him alone.”

“All right.”

Harry was one year old, and James already had so many plans for him. The boy was fond of the little toy broomstick his godfather, Sirius, had given him on his first birthday. He was obviously going to be a Quidditch player, just like his father, and he would have the best broomstick that money could buy, never mind the fact that neither James nor Lily had a job at the moment, and were living off the small sum she had inherited from her parents. 

And Harry would go to Hogwarts. 

A part of James insisted the opposite might happen, and he would have to send his son to a Muggle school instead. Lily kept assuring him not to worry; the Muggle world was exciting in its own way, and Harry would be happy in it as long as they were happy with it. James understood where she was coming from, but it was just so hard to not picture Harry at Hogwarts, to not visualise him sleeping in the same bed that he, James, had. To not fantasise about Harry zooming around the Quidditch pitch, perhaps on a Nimbus Nineteen Ninety, clothed in red and gold. 

He put the boy on the sofa and tickled his belly, and the latter erupted with giggles. It was such a glorious, happy sound, his son’s laughter. James was, for the moment, cheerful, and being cheerful, he began to think of happier times. The first time he kissed Lily, for instance. The day they got married. His glory days at the school, winning the Quidditch Cup, running through the Forbidden Forest with Sirius in the dead of the night, with only the moon lighting their path. What lay underneath these memories, like a watchful centaur prowling amongst the trees, was the other side of James’s life—the side only those closest to him had the burden to know. Such as, the day he found out James Potter was somebody he had grown into, since he had been born as someone else.

+

James’s first summer holiday was going marvellously well. Of course, he found school equally fun, but a holiday was a holiday, and he was determined to make the most of it. In some other corner of England, Sirius was competing with him; they sent each other letters to keep up. Fascinated by James’s tales of swimming, and jealous of the fact that Remus could also swim, Sirius had convinced his uncle to let him train, and he was at the moment being coached by a Muggle. The three of them had agreed that Hogwarts’s lake was too good to be wasted on scenic beauty.

James was planning to get his parents to invite Sirius and his uncle for dinner. Since Alphard Black was off the Black Family Tree, James figured he would be welcome at his house. Brimming with self-assurance, he dressed for breakfast, marched down the stairs towards his father’s study, and for the first time in his knowledge, found the door shut.

The sudden need for privacy baffled him. He turned the knob to check if the door was truly shut. It was.

Screwing up his nose, he turned away, deciding to come again later, but the sound of muffled voices stopped him. Someone else was with his parents. The voice belonged to a man. It was a voice he didn’t recognise, and it kept saying ‘sorry’ in way that made it clear he was pleading. His mother, meanwhile, had raised her voice. She sounded angry. Although James couldn’t make out much of what she was yelling, he thought he heard his name.

This put him in a dilemma. On the one hand, he had been taught it was wrong to eavesdrop. On the other, they were discussing him, and it didn’t seem to be a pleasant discussion. Knowing full well he wasn’t allowed to do magic outside of school, he slipped his wand out of his pocket and opened the door by about half an inch. As it didn’t face the sitting area directly, no one would notice the tiny gap. He leaned in to listen better.

“He is yours, Dory,” the new man said. “I just want to see him once. You don’t have to tell him the truth.”

Dorea’s voice was trembling when she answered. “You think it’s easy going to explain to him why I’ve never mentioned you? You think he’ll like it when he finds out I’ve kept him in the dark about my own brother? You don’t know what he’s like. How could you know? It was Charlus and I who raised him.”

“Because I didn’t have a choice,” said the man mutedly. 

“And the resemblance!” Dorea went on. “The resemblance, Marius! He keeps wondering why he looks so different, and when he sees you, when he sees the picture of your wife—”

“I won’t show him anything, Dory!”

“I can’t!” she half-shrieked. “He’s my son. He’s mine. If he finds out we’ve lied to him—”

“Perhaps, he has a right to know,” Charlus spoke at last. His proposal produced a brief silence. Then Dorea, in a low voice which made James squirm, said, “What?”

“Marius did not abandon him out of neglect,” Charlus said. “You cannot berate him for it. And what if James find out from someone else? How do you think that will reflect on us?”

“How could you?” gasped Dorea, at the same time Marius said, “Thank you, but it’s not necessary.”

“I have been told,” Charlus continued, paying heed to neither, “that the infamous Black family tapestry has not given our son a name yet. We are not above suspicion, and I’d prefer for James to hear the full truth from us, rather than a garbled version from another source.”

There was a soft thump, as though somebody had sat down heavily on the sofa. In the quiet that followed, James could discern the sobs of his mother. He was overcome by a strong urge to run away from the place, but equally powerful was the desire to stay. His heart was banging hard against his ribcage. His throat had run dry. He was not sure he wanted to see the face of the new man who had invaded the peaceful life of his family. 

But was it his family? Was Dorea truly his mother? Was Charlus the father he had always claimed he was? 

Dorea had been anxious about resemblances. James couldn’t help recalling all those times he had brought up the subject. He neither looked like his father—who was short, plump, and had soft flaxen hair—nor like his mother, with her tiny nose and tranquil blue eyes. The only similarity he shared with them was his mother’s black hair, although hers was silky and straight, and his, irreparably messy.

“I couldn’t hurt Dory’s feelings,” the new man said. “I—I will leave straightaway.”

“It’s too late,” Charlus said. James hastily stepped back, certain that his presence had been discovered. “I can bring him here if you like.”

Somebody sighed audibly. James was sure it was the man, since his mother was still crying. 

“If it’s come to that, I’d like to meet him outside. Near the lake.”

“Then, please wait there, and give us a moment.”

That was James’s cue to scarper. He shut the door, turned the knob, and ran back up the stairs, thankful for the fact he was wearing only his socks. He stopped midway and peeped from between the uprights of the banister, waiting for the man to come out. If he had to see him—and it was beginning to look like he was—James wanted to be prepared. 

The door opened again after a while, and a tall man shuffled out. He walked away too quickly for James to see his face properly, but the young boy had noticed at least two distinct things, both of which sufficed. The glint of spectacles was one, and the back of the head, stuffed with unruly black hair streaked with silver and sticking out in all directions, was the other. James stared at it, right up to the second the man unlocked the front door and stepped outside into the glare of the morning.

He returned to his room, confused and numb. He felt too many things, yet he was unsure if he was feeling the right things. He thought he should be angry—at his parents for lying, at this new man, this man who had his hair and wore glasses, for hiding. Instead, he was sad for himself, and he couldn’t deal with it properly because self-pity was an emotion that felt clunky to his nature. A pain rose in his throat and settled at the edges of his jaws, where they met the ears. He was going to cry.

He was summoned right away. He put on his shoes and made his way back to his father’s study. Charlus Potter’s study, he corrected himself. It was the same journey he had made only minutes earlier; the thoughts coursing through his heads were, however, utterly altered. Plans of inviting Sirius and Alphard Black to dinner had evaporated; in their place, concerns of his own past, present and future had settled. Morosely, he entered the study, forgetting to put on a cheery front which would conceal the fact of his knowing why exactly he was there.

“How much did you hear?” Charlus asked him. 

James wondered if he was going to be admonished, but Charlus was smiling sadly. He was sitting on the sofa, one arm around the shoulder of his wife, who had her face turned away. She seemed unwilling to look at James. 

“Some of it,” James said. His voice was shaking, as though he was already on the verge of tears. He probably was on the verge of tears, but James fought it. He didn’t want to upset Dorea even further. 

“I . . . am not your son.” He hadn’t meant to put that as a statement. The universe was working against him. “I mean, that’s what I understood,” he added.

“I didn’t conceive you,” Dorea sniffed, her eyes still fixed on the wall opposite her. “But you were given to me, and I love you. I love you as if I carried you in my womb. I—”

She trailed off. James shoved his fists deeper into the pockets of his trousers. He would not cry.

“What you must understand, James,” Charlus picked up, “is that nothing has changed between you and us. We are still going to be the family we have always been.”

“Why is he here, then?” James asked.

“Because he hasn’t seen you in a while.”

“So where has he been?”

“That,” said Charlus, “is something only he has the right to tell you.”

+

“Do you want to see something?” James asked Harry, who cooed. “Here, c’mon.”

He picked up his son and walked to the window. “Look at that,” he said, pointing at the row of pumpkin lanterns on their neighbour’s porch. “At Hogwarts, those lamps float in the air, along with hundreds and hundreds of candles. The tables are crowded with heaps of food and drinks, and Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, often re-enacts his failed decapitation. It would be hilarious, but you can sort of still make out the ghost of his insides. A bit revolting, to be honest.”

Harry gurgled contentedly.

“If you don’t go to Hogwarts,” James said, in a unique show of resignation, “I can still make the lanterns float for you. And there’ll be candles. And maybe, we could persuade Nick to come, eh?”

“Mmmah-mmah,” Harry replied.

“Either way, I’m never going to leave you. You know why?” 

Harry drooled.

“Because I’m your father, and I love you.”

+

James was coming out of the house. It was a reasonably long walk to the lake, for which he was thankful. He needed time to brace himself. He needed time to figure out how he was going to meet the man. 

His name was Marius Black, and he was Dorea’s older brother. James had heard the name a long time back. Marius was the Squib Sirius told him about—the one who had been burnt off the Black family tree at the age of eleven. After it became clear he was not going to receive any letters from Hogwarts, Marius had been packed off to a Muggle orphanage and subsequently raised in a foster home. He and Dorea occasionally sent each other letters. She had been the sole family member to still acknowledge him.

That much, James had just been informed. The rest, he had to find out from Marius. 

Too soon, he was getting closer. He could see Marius’s outline stamped against the green background of the woods across the lake: a tall, thin, black silhouette. The inside of his stomach began to wriggle, as though a thousand scarab beetles were scuttling to and fro. His legs were, however, propelled by an inexorable force; try as he might, he could not slow down.  
He coughed when he reached the spot, since Marius had not perceived his arrival. With a sharp intake of breath, Marius squared his shoulders and turned to meet his son. “Hello,” he said, sounding broken. 

James stared and stared at the man, quite forgetting to greet back, for there was the face he had longingly searched. There was the long nose, and there were the hazel eyes. “Are you acrophobic?” he blurted out.

“What?”

“Are you scared of—”

“Oh no. I’m okay with altitude.” Marius ran a hand through his hair, making it messier than before. He smiled nervously, as though he wasn’t sure he was allowed to be friendly. “I’m currently working as a window cleaner. Skyscrapers can be very tall.”

James didn’t know what ‘skyscrapers’ meant, nor did he care. As long as Marius didn’t mind heights . . . 

“Would you like to sit?” Marius asked, sitting down on the ground before James answered. “I hope you won’t mind me smoking. I badly need a fag.”

“Okay,” said James. He sat down next to Marius, and was unsurprised to see the latter’s hands trembling as he lit a cigarette. His own knees were wobbly. Neither of them spoke, preferring to watch the smoke rings which flew out of Marius’s mouth. The smell was bad, but the rings were interesting enough. 

“Can you swim?” Marius asked. 

“Yeah. I like it.”

“I was a champion swimmer at the Muggle school I went to. I even won trophies.”

“What do you do about the glasses?”

“I wore strap-on’s. What about you?”

“Fastening charms.”

“Cool.” 

A few more seconds’ silence, then James said, “Where do you live?”

“London.”

“Do you like window-cleaning?”

“It’s a job. I sit on a suspended platform and mop. Nothing special, but the views are fantastic. I   
prefer to do the uppermost levels, feel the wind. And the quiet. The world seems larger when you’re thirty storeys up, because you can see more of it. At the same time, it’s smaller. The people, the cars—they look like ants, and you don’t have to be afraid of them.”

James wondered if that was what he liked about flying. When he was on a broomstick, the world did seem larger and smaller at the same time. The part about fear, though, he couldn’t agree with. He wasn’t scared of anyone; he had no reason to be. There was the motion, as well. He flew on a broomstick; he had control. He didn’t hang precariously on suspended platforms. 

“Did you ever sit on a broomstick?” he decided to ask. 

“I had a toy broomstick once. There was a flying carpet, too.”

“Did you enjoy riding them?”

“I don’t remember. I was very young. I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t have liked it, though.”  
“Do you want to fly now?” James asked. He had no idea where the question had come from. Now that he’d said it, he was convinced it was the right question to ask. The right thing to do. “I have three broomsticks, all extremely good ones. They’ve got speed, and comfortable seats, too. So many people complain about the seats, when all they have to do is cast a cushioning charm—which, I, of course, don’t do outside of school,” he lied. Why he felt it necessary to lie, he couldn’t comprehend. 

“Will you fly with me? It’s quite easy. It’ll come back to you.”

Marius took off his glasses and wiped them with the edge of his shirt. “That’s what they say about cycling. It’ll come back to you.” He looked at James; his expression was unreadable. “Maybe another day. For now, why don’t we ...” He hesitated. “Why don’t we talk?”

“We’re talking.”

“No. I mean, don’t you want to know anything?”

“I am asking you about what I want to know.”

“About your mother.”

Until Marius had brought it up, James had not given a single thought to his biological mother. The woman was a blank canvas. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out who she was, what she looked like, what she did. All of a sudden, he was scared.

“Her name was Celine Rosier,” Marius told him anyway. “She was a witch.”

James registered the ‘was’. He was then unsure whether to be relieved or alarmed. “What happened?”

“She died.” He gave no explanation as to how she died, and James asked for none. “How much did Dorea tell you?” 

James recounted what he had learnt earlier. 

“I ran away from my foster home when I was seventeen,” Marius said. “My guardians were nice to me, but it wasn’t where I belonged. I had to go back to the wizarding world, you see. I worked small jobs to save enough money to get to London. I’d been to Diagon Alley before. I knew where it was. Once I was inside the Leaky Cauldron . . . To be honest, James, I’m not eloquent enough to tell you exactly how I felt. I wanted to feel I was home, because all those years with the Muggles, I had felt like an outsider. And yet, _this_ felt alien too. I was an imposter. I had no wand. There wasn’t a drop of magic in my blood.

“It wasn’t as though the people at the pub were pulling rabbits out of their hats. They only sat there—normal people doing normal things like eating, talking, drinking. I could do the same, and nobody would notice the difference. Still, I found it hard to move forward, to walk through the pub and wait for someone to open the portal to the market. I decided to leave before people became suspicious. I turned back, and I had almost reached the door when she came in.”

Marius paused to take another cigarette out. James waited without a word. A breeze swept over them, making it hard for Marius to keep his lighter aflame long enough. James took out his wand and lit the cigarette for him.

“So, you do cast cushioning charms outside of school,” Marius observed shrewdly. 

“I suppose,” said James. He tried to grin. His facial muscles, however, refused to perform the necessary movements, so that he merely appeared constipated. 

“I’m not telling,” Marius said, laughing. “I’m a bit proud of you for breaking their damn rules.”

His eyes were fixed on the general direction of the lake as he smoked, but he seemed to be looking beyond them. James glanced at the crow’s feet flaring out of Marius’s left eye. Somebody once told him these wrinkles were signs of the person’s good humour. People who had crow’s feet were supposed to laugh easily and often. He wondered if this was true of Marius. 

“I don’t like talking about her,” Marius said. “I don’t like describing her. People might say she was attractive, and she was, but that reduces her to just her body. That wasn’t why I loved her. I have trouble telling you, James, and you deserve to know her the most. You’d have liked her. Loved her. She was wonderful. She was kind. She was . . .” He swallowed audibly. “She worked as a curse-breaker for Gringotts. That worked out nicely for me since I needed to change my Muggle money for Galleons. I followed her all the way to the bank.”

“Contrary to what some people believe,” he said, bitter all of a sudden, “Squibs _can_ get jobs in the magical world. The Gringotts goblins actually trust us more than the ‘wand-carriers’. They needed people who could slip between the two worlds, magical and Muggle, without looking out of place in either. Not a lot of wizard or witches who grow up in the magical world bother to take Muggle Studies at school. You know how they always end up dressing up like Shakespearean fools.” Again, he paused. “I suppose you wouldn’t get that reference. Let’s say they look like clowns.”

James didn’t know what ‘clowns’ were either, but he refrained from asking for a clarification.

“Anyway, the goblins took me in the end. I was a Squib, and I wasn’t going to do any fancy tricks on them. It was a bit of a miracle, to be perfectly honest. How everything worked out. I was assigned to a team going to Kimberley. Celine was in it. We met, properly this time. She was a few years older than me. We fell in love. When things work out like that, James, you should know, something bad is going to happen.”

“Her family didn’t like it.”

If Marius was surprised at the correctness of James’s conclusion, he didn’t comment on it. “They didn’t. Dominic Rosier came to Kimberley, along with my dear old brother, Pollux. It was shocking, really, because I thought he existed to deny my existence. There was a bunch of other thugs, whom I didn’t recognise. Long story short, Dominic, Celine’s older brother, made plenty of threats. Pollux demanded to know where I was. The bastard hadn’t realised I was hiding in the bathroom, listening in. Celine concealed me well. She was exceedingly skilled.

“Do you mind if I take out another one?” Marius asked, squashing the second, nearly burnt out stub under his feet. 

“Go ahead.”

“She pretended to have seen the errors of her ways. As soon as they had left, we got married.”

“Did they find out?”

“Yes.”

“Did they come again?”

“No. They left us alone, which surprised us. We’d expected to be attacked. She set up protective charms, and I bought a gun.”

“I don’t understand,” James said, confused. “They stopped bugging you, just like that?”

“They did something worse than attack us,” Marius said. “Vesper Rosier, Celine’s mother, put a curse on her. Your mother couldn’t conceive a child as long as she, Vesper, was alive. Celine found it funny, though. She appreciated the irony of being a cursed curse-breaker.”

“So ... I was born after ...”

“Vesper died. Yes. Perhaps, the hag thought she’d outlive us. Celine was forty-four when she gave birth to you. We were thrilled.”

Now, James stopped asking questions. He could tell the end was coming.

“It was then that they attacked. They tracked us down in Kimberley, where we’d settled permanently. You were barely two months old. We were unprepared. Before I could even take out my gun, Celine had hidden the two of us with magic. She faced them alone. Her brother headed the duel. Incredibly, she was winning—I had to watch it all helplessly, trapped under some immobilising spell. But then, but then . . .” 

He was mute for so long James thought he’d never speak again. 

“She lost,” Marius said bluntly. “They had brought a beast along with them. In hindsight, I believe it was meant for me. It was too much for her, you see. Three wizards and a monster. Perhaps, Dominic’s brotherly instincts resurfaced at that moment, because he took down the beast with a Killing Curse. By then, the damage had been done, of course. They forgot about us and left her for dead.”

“That was how she died.”

“No, but she was severely ill. We returned to England; she insisted we must. You have to understand, James, that it was too dangerous for you to remain with us. We had to give you up. I contacted the only person left that I could trust. My sister, Dorea. She and Charlus were childless, and they accepted you without a moment’s hesitation. They went to live in Switzerland for a while, taking you with them, and two years later, they were back with a son. I read the announcement in the papers.”

“When ... when did Celine die?”

“Four years after you returned.”

“Did you ever see me again?”

“This is the first time I’m seeing you after I gave you to Dory,” Marius said. “I’m sorry, James. It was Dory’s wish for things to remain that way, and after everything she and Charlus had done for us, how could we refuse?”

But James was angry now. “Why did she do that?” he cried. “Why didn’t she want Celine and you to see me?”

Marius didn’t answer immediately. He was toying with the half-burnt third cigarette, which he had forgotten to smoke. “She was scared of losing you,” he said at last. “She _is_ scared of losing you. I don’t think she’s loved anybody, or anything, more in her life.”

+

“Do you want to do something fun?” James asked Harry, who had got bored of the view outside. He took his son back to the sofa, sat him down, and taking out his wand, cried in a ceremonial voice, “Ladies and gentleman, I now present to you, James Potter, the Wandering Wizard!”

_  
They were sitting inside a huge, colourful circular tent—James, Sirius, and Marius. Since the two boys had never been to a circus, Marius thought they would find it amusing. They were about to watch the performance of the famous magician, Saul Malaki. ‘Ladies and gentleman!” cried the beautiful lady in the glittery dress. “I present to you, Saul Malaki, the Maverick Magician!”_

 

Harry was watching James intently. “What’s that?” cried James, tugging at the end of his wand. A band of bright ribbons burst from the tip. Harry yelled. “Why, it’s a bunch of beautiful ribbons!”

_  
“How in hell did he do that?” Sirius whispered excitedly. “Must be some sort of a conjuring charm.”_

_“He’s a Muggle, you daft git,” James giggled._

_“Marius, you should have been a bloody magician!” Sirius said, ignoring James. “That would have been a real slap on their face.”_

 

“And now, time for Potter’s signature move! The one that has all the ladies swooning!” Lily booed from the kitchen. “Exploding Lights!” 

Small puffs of coloured smoke erupted from James’s wand. It was Harry’s favourite trick. His laughter was full of joy as he tried to catch the dissipating balls, the very image of precious innocence. James could have sat there forever, blissfully ignorant of everything else which was happening outside of their sheltered cottage. He forgot about time. He forgot about the war. He forgot about their quickly depleting bank balance. He was with his wife and his son, and he was lucky enough to understand that being with one’s family in the safety of the home, was the most invaluable luxury.

It lasted only a while, as all good things are bound to. Time returned to claim its hold. Lily was telling him Harry should go to bed, and he didn’t argue, even though he wanted to continue being James Potter the Wandering Wizard a little longer. 

After mother and son had left, he flung his wand on the sofa. Overcome with unjustified exhaustion, he stretched and yawned.

The front door flew open of its own accord, and now, there was no time at all. A tall hooded man—the one from whom they were supposed to be hiding—was entering the house, full of deadly purpose. 

“Lily!” James heard himself shouting. “Take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off—”

_  
“Prongs.”_

_“Shut up, Padfoot. Let me sleep.”_

_“I know what I’m going to be after school.”_

_“For the love of Merlin—”_

_“I’m going to be a magician.”_

_“Big surprise.”_

_“I’m serious, you prick.”_

_“You wanted to be a window cleaner when you first met Marius.”_

_“No, listen. I’ve got it all figured out. I don’t have to learn their skills because I can do magic. I’ll be using my wand. And it’s exactly the sort of thing I want to do. I want to travel the world. I want to live and work on my own terms.”_

_“Plus, there’s the part about female fans?”_

_“Occupational hazards, not sorry to say.”_

_“Whatever, Padfoot.”_

_“Prongs.”_

_“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”_

_“I’m thrilled I met Marius.”  
_

He wasn’t really thinking of what he was saying. Every word that came out of his mouth in those final seconds was impulsive. And what he was really thinking of, he couldn’t say, for the millions upon millions of moments when he could have said it to person who deserved to hear it, he had wasted due to his own cowardice.

So, he said it in his head, picturing quite vividly in the onrushing green light the smiling, youthful face of his best friend. 

“I am sorry, Sirius.”


	4. The Stag - II

It was the winter of 1977, and Christmas spirit had spread to every inch of Hogwarts, with wreathes and trees and mistletoe and lights decorating the castle, and the students wearing Santa hats in place of their usual black ones. The portraits shouted greetings to anybody who happened to pass them, while suits of armour sang carols. The Gryffindor common room was crowded with students in casual robes, discussing their holiday plans and exchanging presents. Noticeably absent in the throng of cheery Gryffindors were four seventh year students. 

They were in their dormitory, their mood untouched by the bonhomie in the air. James was lying on his bed, eyes closed and knees propped up. On his right, Remus was seated on a desk, and next to Remus, Peter stood, his back leaning against the wall. Sirius was pacing back and forth the room. 

Two letters lay scattered on James’s bed, one from Amelia Bones, Marius Black’s magical solicitor, and the other, sent to her by David Forrester, his Muggle solicitor, then forwarded to James. Forrester’s letter was a notification to Bones: she was to collect the will of Mark White (Marius’s fake Muggle name) from his office, and she had to bring James Potter along as well, as his signature was required. Bones’s letter was an explanation to James. Marius had hired her to oversee the proceedings when the time came, and the time had come. Could James meet her the day he reached home for his Christmas break? He could take the Floo to her office directly from home. That way, they could have the business settled quickly. 

All of this meant that Marius was dead--had, in fact, been dead for a while, and James hadn’t known. No one had known. 

Of course, they would have known if only Marius had been allowed to live in the open. He wouldn’t have needed to be Mark White. His death would have been reported in the _Daily Prophet_. They would have contacted Charlus or James. And James could have attended his funeral.

He would have gone, even if he had sworn earlier the same year, that he would never attend another funeral.

+

The light had faded long before James and Sirius realised they were sitting outside on the porch, in the dark. Sirius was smoking, a habit he picked up from Marius Black. Earlier that afternoon, Marius had left him an entire packet. James had frowned at it, since Alphard didn’t approve of smoking. Sirius said it was all right as long as his uncle didn’t know.

Now, James was too tired to rebuke his friend. A lot had happened over the past few days. First, there was the case of the mysterious letter that Severus Snape had produced. The sender had signed off as Lily Evans, which wasn’t true. Who, then, was the author of the letter that got Snape nearly killed, and one of them executed by the Ministry of Magic?

A row had followed between his friends and him. Peter stayed away from speculations, claiming that he couldn’t put his own friends under suspicion. But James was positive that Peter was being too diplomatic to reveal his real opinion. Peter, always so disapproving of their antics, surely suspected Sirius and him. 

Remus said nothing at first. He joined their discussion only when Sirius crossly asked if he was going to give any input. He said he was aghast at the recklessness of the prank, the dangerous consequences it could have had. Like Peter, he chose not to voice who he thought were behind it; unlike Peter, he faced the music for the obvious accusation. Sirius raged at him for being fickle, which James considered was stretching things a bit too far, while Remus lashed back at Sirius for his irresponsibility and thoughtlessness. The argument had gone beyond the matter of the letter. 

Peter intervened. “Perhaps, Lily did write it,” he said, avoiding James’s eye. “Perhaps, she intended to meet him and got cold feet at the last moment. And poor Snape kept waiting long enough to see Pomfrey prodding the base to let--”

“Bollocks!” shouted Sirius. “He has it in for James and me. He’s been sneaking around since first year, scheming to get us expelled. I bet he knew about the Whomping Willow. He was biding his time. He and Lily used to be thick. He must know her handwriting. The twat probably thought the letter would make him free of suspicion.”

“Dumbledore said Lily didn’t write the letter,” James added. “It makes sense.”

“If Snape wrote it,” Remus said, “then Dumbledore would have known and dealt the issue there and then. Why should he summon us? He must think it came from us.”

“He’s not omniscient,” snapped Sirius. 

“And _you_ are?” 

“If you’ve got a better explanation, Remus,” James said before Sirius could respond, “we’re ready to hear it.”  
Remus took a while to answer. James was convinced he would point the finger at Sirius and him, and it would be the end of their friendship for the foreseeable future. “Only one thing is certain,” Remus said with determination. “Neither Snape nor Lily wrote it. And it’s not just the fake handwriting. I’ve been friends with her for over a year now. Whatever it was between the two of them, it’s over from her side.” With that, he grabbed his prefect’s badge and left.

Sirius followed suit, swearing loudly at no one in particular, and Peter, to James’s incredulity, changed into his pyjamas and went straight to sleep. Alone, confused and aggravated, he grabbed his towel and stepped into the bathroom for a hot shower.

So, he ruminated, Lily was beyond any doubt done with Snape. The incongruous friendship between the bigoted Slytherin and the Muggleborn Gryffindor had gone kaput the previous year. It was an outcome which James had been initially thankful for; he was certain that with the removal of Snape from the scenario, Lily might come to return his feelings. Sadly, her attitude towards him remained the same. 

Although, less than a week later, in his parents’ house, away from the school and dealing with an unexpected heavy loss, his own attitude towards Lily began to change. Was it so important, James wondered, to secure the affection of this one girl who had never liked him, when the woman who raised him and loved him like a mother, was dead? 

 

James had been in Quidditch practice when Remus came to find him. Sirius was lounging in the stands, simply because he had no desire to be around Remus and Peter. As James descended towards Remus, he noticed that the two boys were pointedly ignoring each other. 

“Everything all right?” James asked Remus. He was surprised to find his friend looking anxious. 

“James, Dumbledore wants to see you in his office.” Behind him, Sirius sat up straight and started to pay attention.

“Is it about that bloody letter again?” James said.

“No,” Remus replied heavily. “It’s your mother. She’s . . . She is dead.”

After that, things flashed by in a haze. James had a muddled memory about running to the headmaster’s office in his Quidditch clothes, Remus and Sirius hurrying along in his wake, their mutual animosity forgotten. 

Dumbledore was waiting with McGonagall. He didn’t give him the details. He merely informed him that he had permission to leave the school as soon as he liked to. 

“Sir,” Sirius said. “Sir, may I go as well?”

“If you wish to. I’m afraid,” said Dumbledore, as Remus began to speak up, “that Mr Lupin will have to remain behind, since he is the Prefect.”

They took the Floo, using the fireplace in Dumbledore’s office. Charlus and Marius were waiting for them at the other end. Nobody said much that evening. James went to bed early. He wanted to be left alone. It was past midnight when he fell asleep, and before dawn, when he woke up. He quietly went to the broom-shed and flew around the house in circles, then took off towards the lake, and beyond. 

She had been sleeping when the stroke happened. Was that a kind death? James couldn’t say. He only regretted his inability to recall details of the last time they were together. He had spent the Christmas break at Marius’s flat with Sirius, so the last time he saw her must have been September the first of the previous year, the day he left for school. What had she worn that day? Was it her favourite magenta robes, or the new flowery ones she had recently bought from Twilfitt and Tattings? What was the last word she said? What was the last word he said to her? He desperately willed his brain to remember. 

Was she upset when he told her he wanted to stay with Marius for Christmas? But there had been nothing in her letter to indicate her displeasure. She had given him her blessings; she had understood. She had been prepared for it since the day Marius turned up without warning, and James asked her--specifically her--if Marius could stay the weekend with them. 

James, who was only twelve, did not then possess the sensibility to offer vocal assurances. He wanted to show he still loved her as much--he just didn’t know how. The only tactic he could come up with was to hover around her the rest of the day, pretending to be busy with this and that, while she sat on her armchair, holding a book. The many hours they were in the same room in this manner, James did not hear her turn a single page. 

The night before he left for his second year, weeks after Marius had gone, she pulled him into a tight embrace and said, “Thank you.” 

Out of respect, James did not contact Marius again, and vice versa. Then, the summer before his fifth year began, Dorea told him placidly, “You can see him if you want.”

James couldn’t dare believe what he had just heard. He gaped at her.

“I’m serious,” she said with a tentative smile. “I’m not afraid anymore.”

She would have understood, James kept reassuring himself. He had promised her he’d be home the next Christmas, that this was going to be a one time thing. He had also written: _I’m taking Sirius along. The idiot wants to see the Muggle world. So, it’s more like a holiday with the boys._

James was so absorbed with these thoughts that he forgot to mourn. He did not cry at the funeral, too numb, and too anxious for forgiveness. The sniffs and sobs which occasionally entered his auditory senses were like background music to a show he wasn’t a part of. 

“James?” 

He was surprised to see the redness in Sirius’s eyes.

“Are you okay?”

James couldn’t remember how he had responded the first time. Sirius was asking him the same question again, and he was mum.

“You all right, mate?” repeated Sirius, about to light what seemed like his fifth cigarette in the past two hours or so.

“That’s enough,” said James suddenly. He snatched the packet from Sirius’s hands and got rid of it with a Vanishing Charm. “I think you should go back to school tonight. I want to stay a few more days.”

Sirius opened his mouth to debate, but open noticing the set expression on James’s face, nodded.

“What about the Quidditch match?”

“Tell Johnson to step in.”

“You’re the captain, though.”

“Campbell can handle it.”

“You sure?” Sirius frowned. “It’s going to be a decisive match.”

“You sound like Remus,” James retorted, more to annoy Sirius than anything. He knew the real reason why Sirius was so eager for James to go. He didn’t want to be alone with Remus, or Peter. 

“Right.” With a mock bow, Sirius retreated into the house, letting the door shut behind him with a loud bang. James, in his turn, kicked one of the flower pots which stood near his feat. Then he set off for the lake, taking his clothes off one by one on the way. His insides had ballooned up with irrepressible energy. Clothed only in his boxers, he dived into the cold water, and swam until his lungs could take no more.

+

The thick silence in the dormitory was broken by Peter’s wall clock, which started to chime. Seven times the cuckoo jumped out of the clock, heralding dinner time. None of the boys moved a muscle.

“You lads go ahead,” James mumbled a while later. “I’d like some time alone.”

Once his three friends had obediently trudged out of the room, he picked up the letters again and reread them.   
They still said the same thing. He pointed his wand at them and made a small, unhurried wave. The words lifted from the paper and hung suspended in the air. 

It was a spell he had invented to amuse himself when he got bored with revision. Sometimes, Sirius would rearrange the floating words and the let them drop. James would then try to piece together the original sentences. If he got it correct verbatim, Sirius would pay him five Galleons. If he didn’t, the penalty would be his to pay. He rarely lost.

“Now, you say nothing,” he muttered at the blank papers. He was debating whether to keep the letters that way, bare and powerless, when somebody knocked on the door, and in surprise, he let the words fall to the surface in an unruly heap. 

“Who’s it?” he yelled. 

“It’s me. Lily.”

“Shit,” he said. Leaving the nonsensical letters on the bed, he walked towards the door and opened it by an inch. 

“Sorry if I disturbed you,” Lily said apologetically. “I was waiting for you at dinner, but you didn’t come with the others. Prefects’ meeting at eight.”

That had completely slipped his mind. “Shit,” he said again. He began to run his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I forgot. Damn it.” 

Instead of the snide comment he’d expected Lily to make, and subconsciously prepared to ignore, she said, 

“James, you look a mess. Are you all right?”

He hated that question; it had been put to him rather too often lately. “Yeah,” he began to say. “Actually, no. I’ve . . . I’ve just heard some bad news from home.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

For a fleeting moment, he was tempted to tell her. He had tried to open up to his friends, and succeeded only at shoving the letters into Sirius’s hands before lying down on his bed to steady himself. It might have been easier to put his conflicting emotions into words, had they been ignorant of what Marius meant to him. He could have narrated the secret history of his real parents, and in revealing that history in its entirety, the intensity of his trauma would have become apparent. He was finding it difficult to grieve; his eyes remained dry, language failed him. This inability was the sole thing churning inside his mind, like a sluggish, vaporous liquid.

Lily would have listened. James had stopped pursuing her since Dorea’s death, and ever since their election as Head Boy and Head Girl, their relationship had changed from confrontational to civil. He stared into her green eyes, perceived the genuine concern in them, and realised that, no, she was not the right person to bother with his tragedy. 

“I can’t talk about it right now,” he said gently. “Thanks for asking.”

She nodded. “I understand. Hey, if you aren’t feeling up to it, I can handle it on my own. I only need to collect the lists of students going home for Christmas.”

“Are you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was thinking of staying back. My last chance to celebrate Christmas at Hogwarts.” Her smile was sad, wistful. “My sister’s getting engaged. She’ll raise hell if I don’t turn up. I suppose you are going as well.”  
James said he was and left it at that. “See you later, then,” said Lily. She kissed him on the cheek before walking away.

In another lifetime, James would have pumped his fist in victory. He would have declared to the whole school Lily’s lips had just touched his cheek. He would have set off fireworks and faced a month’s worth of detention for it, too. Now, James was merely bewildered. The kiss made as much as sense as the fact of his father’s death, which is to say, it made no sense at all. 

The next morning, he woke up to find the letters on the table, neatly folded and accompanied by a small note. It was from Sirius, and it read: _Gone for breakfast. Will get you some._

He opened the letters to rearrange the words in their original position. Sirius had already done it for him.

+

The four third year boys from Gryffindor house were sprawled on the grass. Sirius had requested sunshine and open air, and the lakeshore was the best spot they could think of. The leaves rustled in the distance, and a gentle lapping sound suggested the giant squid was gliding nearby. Everything looked and smelled fresher, clearer.

“So, that’s my secret,” Sirius said. His voice was hollow. “I’m sorry I lied to you.” 

Although it was barely noticeable, James discerned the inclination of Sirius’s head in his direction. 

“There’s no need to apologise,” spoke Remus. He was responsible for the disclosure of this secret. That, thought James, must have made him eager to control any possible damage. James, however, knew Sirius better. The enormous shame and fear which Sirius was wrestling with would go only when there was an equal amount of shame and fear to counterbalance them. Why they must feel ashamed, James did not understand. They were not at fault. 

“Let’s make a pact,” he said, sitting up. “We’ll all share a secret. A big secret. Four of us have to keep it. We cannot talk about it to anyone. If anyone asks us anything related to the secrets, we don’t tell them.”  
Peter and Remus looked at each other, but Sirius was gazing at him.

“We’ll cast protective and anti-revealing charms, of course,” he added. “If you agree, we begin right now. Sirius has already told us his. I’ll tell you mine.”

“Okay,” said Remus. Peter nodded, and so did Sirius.

It took them a while to think of the charms, but the combined effort of four rather well-read and inventive adolescent wizards won in the end. Once the necessary spellwork was completed, James cleared his throat and declared, “Well, I’m adopted, my real father is a Squib and his wife is dead.”

+

Amelia Bones, when James met her, was dressed in a sharp Muggle suit. She had severely short blonde hair, and a no-nonsense attitude which James found unusually comforting.

“Your uncle hired me three years ago. He didn’t trust me at first,” she said, stowing her wand inside the pocket of her overcoat. It took James a few seconds to register whom she meant by ‘uncle’. “But my mother was a close friend of your aunt’s.”

She didn’t explain further. She was busy checking her reflection in a conjured mirror, though not for the sake of vanity. The scrutiny in her eyes was too serious. “He interviewed me for half an hour on Muggle law,” she said. “I had luckily read a few books on the subject. It also didn’t hurt that I took Muggle Studies in school.”

“Bet that warmed you to him,” James said. 

“Mmm.” 

“Thank you for taking him on,” James said. “Not many people would have.”

A small smile appeared on her face as the mirror dissolved, having served its purpose. Taking up her briefcase, she asked, “Are you ready?”

James nodded his assent.

“Take my arm.”

James obeyed. Amelia’s office sank into blackness, and after a moment’s suffocation, they were greeted by an unfamiliar alley. They made their way into the street, she leading and James doing his best to not lose her in the throng of Christmas shoppers. David Forrester’s office was situated right at the corner. The place was empty, save for the balding man waiting in the hallway. 

“Everybody’s gone home for the holidays,” Forrester said irritably, by way of an introduction. His accusatory tone made it clear Amelia and James were responsible for his holidays beginning late. “You Bones?” he barked at Amelia, who answered in the affirmative. “Here’s the will.” An envelope was shoved into her hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he began to say, but Amelia cut him off. 

“I need to compare the assets listed here with the inventory of possessions I have with me,” she said. “Will you have a seat?”

The question seemed to offend Forrester. He flushed red, and the look he gave Amelia was not one of admiration. Amelia, however, ignored him, and took her time opening the briefcase and locating the inventory. 

James was starting to quite like her. 

“Hmm. There’s one item excluded from the will,” she said. “A set of documents he keeps in his bank.”

“This is his latest will, revised in October,” he said impatiently. “I really must go now, my wife is waiting for me at home to go to effing Marks & Spencer and I have a bloody load of shopping to do!”

“Was it in the original will?”

“Look, I can’t say--”

“Mark trusted me with a responsibility, too,” Amelia interjected once again. “If anything’s amiss, I need to investigate thoroughly. What happened to the documents?”

“I can’t tell you!” cried Forrester.

“You’re not going until we have this straightened out,” Amelia replied, with just the barest hint of threat in her voice.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” muttered Forrester. “What’s it to me, anyway? He left everything, including the documents, to his nephew, James Potter, in the previous will. Then he made a new one in October and, hey presto! The documents are no longer there. Maybe he destroyed them. Maybe he auctioned them. Nobody knows because he gave me no explanations.”

“Your client omits a possession from his old will, and you did not ask why?”

“Christ! It was nothing but a bunch of letters and newspaper clippings, so it’s not going to put the nation’s security at risk by going missing.”

James, who had been observing the interaction silently, spoke up. “Miss Bones, I believe I know the reason behind this anomaly. The thing is, he’s already given those papers to me.”

“There!” Forrester said. “Now that that’s sorted, can we all please leave?”

Before Amelia could pursue the matter, James apologised to Forrester and led the way out of the office. He could feel Amelia glaring at the back of his head. As soon as Forrester had got into a taxi--James took a mental note of the address, just in case--she rounded on him. 

“This list I have,” she said, “is bound by magic. Any item he intends to add to the will gets added to the list, and any item he bequeaths to someone else while alive gets removed. It makes the job easy for both solicitors.”  
James waited.

“He didn’t give the documents to you, did he?”

“No,” he said at once. “But I have no wish to read the papers. Perhaps, he didn’t want me to read them in the end.”

She pursed her lips, still not trusting. “All right,” she said finally, unable to think why James would lie. “Would you like me to read out the will to you at the office?”

“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to read it alone.”

Amelia agreed. James returned home and went to his bedroom. The will was in the pocket of his blazer, its negligible weight weighing him down. He closed the door and sat on the floor. 

The missing documents, of course, had to be retrieved. Amelia had not shared her inventory with him, arguing it was a confidential paper; Marius had explicitly asked her not to surrender it to anyone. James, therefore, had no knowledge regarding the location of the letters and clippings that Marius had recently decided not to show to his son. Forrester knew, though. The Muggle solicitor was the only way through which James could get to the documents. Somehow he’d have to convince Forrester to give him access.

But why should Forrester help him? And what would James do if he stuck to his principles? James could not think of a solution to his problem that did not involve magic, and using magic around unsuspecting Muggles would land him in trouble with the Ministry. He had to think of something else.

Meantime, there was the will, a thin, frail piece of paper on which his father’s legacies were recorded. 

The last time a will involving him had been read, it had been his mother’s. Everything she owned had been left to him, to be transferred to his Gringott’s account when he came of age. Two years later, James would transfer all of that money, in addition to his inheritance from Charlus Potter, to a private trust fund for war victims, leaving only enough for his son, Harry. 

He unfolded the paper, and glanced at the first line. _I, Mark White, hereby leave my nephew, James Potter. . ._

He couldn’t go on. Whether it was the two lies contained in that line alone, or the existence of the hidden documents, James was overcome with a stinging antipathy. With his wand, he summoned a mirror from his desk, and held it up to his face.

“Sirius?” he called.

Almost immediately, his reflection morphed into that of his friend. “You called?” said Sirius.

“I need you to get here as soon as you can, preferably with a bottle of Firewhiskey,” James said. “And don’t use the Floo. Apparate directly to my room.”

Within minutes, the silence in his room was assaulted by a deafening crack, and Sirius appeared, Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey in tow. James had already conjured the glasses. Sirius joined him on the floor and dutifully poured shots for the both of them. 

The searing heat of the whiskey ripped through James’s throat. He welcomed the shock and let it attack the whole of his body. When he felt warm enough, he told Sirius about what had happened, and requested the latter to read the will without uttering a word of it, and inform him of the gist of the content.

“You inherit everything,” Sirius murmured, “except for the motorcycle.”

He put the will down and stared at James.

“Prongs, he left it to me.”

+

“What,” exclaimed Sirius, “is _that_?”

They were in the parking lot a little way off the building where Marius worked. Sirius and James had just deposited their trunks at Marius’s flat, where they were going to spend Christmas. They had decided to surprise him, and then force him to take them drinking. 

“That,” said Marius, “is a motorcycle, with a sidecar attached to it.”

“He bought it right before the school year started,” James told Sirius, who was now asking Marius if he could have a go on it. 

“You need to learn how to ride first, or you’ll probably break your neck,” Marius said. “But, we could go back to the flat on this. I need to shower first.”

James sat on the sidecar. He hated the experience--the cramped, low seat, the uncomfortable bumps. He didn’t voice his complaints primarily because of Sirius’s obvious enjoyment. Sirius was sitting behind Marius, yelling and laughing. When James caught Marius’s eye, he winked, and so did the latter. Everything was, in its own way, perfect.

+

“I’d have given it to you, anyway,” James said seriously. “It’s yours.”

Sirius poured himself another shot and closed his eyes as he drank. When he opened them, they were watery.   
“I’m crying,” he said, “because of this bloody drink.”

“Yeah, right, you sentimental sod.”

“I have a plan,” Sirius said, once the tears had been wiped away. “It won’t involve any magic, but we might need a few Galleons.”

The goblins at Gringotts did not celebrate Christmas, which served James and Sirius well. James withdrew a hundred Galleons from his account and exchanged them for Muggle cash. They bought a large gift coupon from Marks & Spencer’s, and a set of Santa costume, which Sirius merrily changed into inside a public toilet. Then they took a taxi to where David Forrester lived. The streets were so crowded that night had already fallen when they reached the address. They watched the house for some time before walking off towards the main street to grab a bite to eat.

After midnight had struck, the two of them returned. James was under his Invisibility Cloak this time; Sirius was still in his Santa suit, complete with a flowing beard. To their satisfaction, the house was quiet, and the lights were out. They casually walked through the side path, making as little noise as possible. The backdoor was locked from inside--an obstacle they had expected. Sirius produced the Swiss knife which Marius had given him for Christmas and slid one of the blades through the keyhole. 

The door opened after a bit of fiddling. With a triumphant grin, Sirius entered the kitchen, James trailing right behind. He could see Sirius was itching to examine the various appliances propped up around the house. “Get a move on,” he hissed.

“All right, all right,” Sirius hissed back.

They went to the drawing room, where a big Christmas tree stood. It was decorated with far too many baubles, tinsels, lights and angels. There was nothing underneath--the Forresters hadn’t laid out the presents yet. The two of them began to search for the boxes, making as little noise as possible. Sirius opened the cupboard under the stairs and whistled softly. He had struck gold. He produced a large bag and began to stuff the boxes into it. James hauled the bag onto his shoulder under the cloak. With that done, the two exited the house. 

The presents, they unwrapped and then covered with different wrapping papers. Sirius would be dropping them off at Marius’s old orphanage, along with some more toys they had bought, the next day. He decided to take the motorcycle, with the boxes stuffed into the sidecar.

“It’s a poetic gesture,” he told James starting the engine.

“Just like stealing a bagful of presents in a Santa suit, eh?” James asked sardonically. Sirius grinned before driving away at the fastest speed he could handle.

James, on his part, went to visit David Forrester, who was irate when he saw him.

“This is not a good time!” the man shouted, his bald head shining with sweat. “A thief broke into our house last night and all the sodding presents are gone!”

“I can help you with that,” James said before Forrester could shut the door. “Look. I’ve got a coupon for Marks & Spencer’s. You can use it for your family.”

With narrowed eyes, Forrester took the coupon from him, read the sum, and coughed. “And what do you want in return?” he asked rudely.

“I just want the documents from the bank,” James said. “You said it was a bunch of letters and newspaper clippings. That’s not worth much, and that’s not dangerous either. I still don’t want them rotting away in a vault.”

“Why did you lie to that Bones woman?” Forrester asked. He sounded wary.

“She wouldn’t have understood.” With a brief prayer to Merlin for forgiveness, James added, “Women don’t really understand these things. They’re too concerned about protocol.”

Forrester chewed his lips some more. He looked on the verge of refusing, but then a female voice screeched from inside, yelling about presents. “Jesus Christ!” he uttered. “Let’s go then. The bank won’t close before noon. We still have time.”

James waited outside the bank for almost an hour. He felt no nervousness. The content of the papers held no particular suspense for him. What could the letters and clippings tell him that he already did not know?   
He had given the subject of the revised will a lot of thought, especially in light of the manner of Marius’s death.   
“It was an accident,” Charlus had told him the night he returned from Hogwarts. “Amelia Bones contacted me. He had been working when he slipped.”

Marius hadn’t anticipated his death. Apart from Sirius getting the motorcycle, which _per se_ was logical, the documents were the only discrepancy. It was highly likely that Marius changed his mind about them because he found them too personal, or too worthless. James pursued them for a simple reason: he couldn’t bear to let a part of his dead father remain untouched, unseen. He was aware of so much, yet there persisted the nagging thought that he could never know enough. Even the smallest, most mundane details would be worthwhile.

He straightened up when he caught sight of Forrester hurrying out of the bank. “Here,” said the latter, pushing a large envelope in the same fashion he had passed the will along to Amelia. “And now, I must run!”

James used a deserted basement to Apparate into his room. He hid the envelope under his pillows, and went down to the dining room to have lunch with Charlus. 

“Did you go anywhere last night?” asked Charlus.

“I went to Marius’s flat with Sirius.”

“Ah.”

It was apparent that Charlus did not believe him. The older man, however, did not press the matter. It was in his nature not to--nothing new, but James felt the gulf between them widen all the same. He was growing distant from Charlus, from the house. Each day rose with an extraordinary vigour, shifting and replacing familiar expectations and desires with new, less dazzling ones, and he could hear time chip away at the innocence of his childhood. Dorea’s death had marked the commencement of his rapid metamorphosis, and Marius’s demise was now acting like a catalyst. James was filled with purpose, with the great, unquenchable passion for _doing_ things, not in the way he had done them till now, heedlessly and without direction, but for concrete ends.

“I’m going to fight in the war,” he announced to Charlus. “I--I want you to be the first to know.”

Charlus considered him in silence, and James saw in his second father’s face both despair and acceptance. “What is your plan?” Charlus asked, surprising him. “This is not like a Muggle war where you can enlist as a soldier.”

“I--er--haven’t thought of it yet.” Indeed, James had not considered the issue from that angle. He was merely confident he would fight.

“I supposed so,” snorted Charlus. “You still need a job.”

“Sirius wants to be a magician,” James said. “I wish I could think of something.”

“What about Quidditch?”

“Too flashy.”

“Is that character growth I smell?” Charlus asked. James had to grin. “You would make a good Auror. Obvious choice, certainly, but you might as well be prepared.”

James thought of what Charlus had always maintained: he was a Quidditch player because Charlus had wanted to be one. “That’s what you wanted to be,” he commented.

“Which means, that’s what you’ll become. It’s how things tend to pan out for us. You let me enjoy the dangerous life vicariously.” He chuckled.

“Can I trust myself to be that responsible?” James asked, unsure and reluctant to hear the truth.

“You’re Head Boy, James, for Merlin’s sake,” Charlus said. “And you’ve always been a brave and honourable boy. In the end, in spite of your penchant for making trouble, you do what is right. That’s enough.”

_Brave. Honourable._ The two words oscillated inside James’s head as he went back to his room. Albus Dumbledore had said the same thing when he asked why he had been chosen as Head Boy. Had used the same adjectives. James was perceptive of his strengths, his fearlessness, his sense of justice. If bravery and honour were enough, he might still play his part with success. He might still help curb the madness that was spilling over the wizarding world.

Buoyed by this new optimism, he fished out the envelope, and extracted the pile of papers. He read the letters first. Two of the senders were two women: Dorea and Bellona Bones, who James supposed was Amelia’s mother. Dorea’s letters numbered only two--the first was an enthusiastic agreement to adopt James and a note adding a promise of monetary help, and the second informed Marius and Celine she, Charlus, and James were leaving for Switzerland. She did not include a forwarding address for their temporary home.

Bellona’s letters, on the other hand, were numerous. She arranged a place for Marius and Celine to stay. _Quite secluded. Wilbur and I will set up necessary defensive enchantments . . . The basement will suit your requirements . ._. She arranged several jobs for Marius. _I strictly recommend you don’t stay put in one place. These Muggle jobs are contractual, just like you asked for._ She sent them ointments and potions for treating Celine. _Essence of Murtlap will help, but she will need other, more potent preparations. I’ve brewed some. . ._ The final few letters were ominous. From what James could make out, Celine had gone missing. The last one read: _We did everything we could. Marius, we are so, so sorry. Please do not do anything rash. Wilbur and I will visit tonight._

The third writer had not signed the letter, which was as terse as Bellona’s last. A distinct dark brown stain decorated its bottom edge. All it said was: _I did it. They will keep it quiet, but know that I avenged us. One of their own, for ours. I do not know whose he was, nor do I care. They are all the same._

The newspaper clipping was under this letter. There were three of them, dated November 1964. _WEREWOLF ATTACK AT DOMINIC ROSIER’S HOUSE._ James read the report carefully. A werewolf had been discovered lurking within the premises of Dominic Rosier’s home, where a small but exclusive party was being held. Their invitees were not mentioned, and there was no casualty. The werewolf escaped before the Hit Wizards arrived. _WEREWOLF HUNT STILL ON._ This was dated three days after the attack. The Aurors were combing lairs, and a number of suspects had been released due to insufficient evidence. The Rosier family had distanced themselves from the case after unsuccessfully attempting to have it closed. It was now a full-blown Ministry investigation. 

James was reminded of Dumbledore’s words: _The Ministry does not look kindly on werewolves who attack magical folk._ He pondered how hotly the Ministry would have pursued the case if the werewolf had turned up at a Muggle area.

The next report announced the werewolf had been caught and summarily executed. There had been no trial. A picture of the criminal was included. The animation charm had long worn off, so that the portrait was still. The _Daily Prophet_ did not specify the gender, referring to the werewolf as ‘it’, but James was willing to bet his life the portrait was a woman’s. Her entire face was scarred; the nose was gone, and a gaping hole above the mangled chin represented the mouth. She was mostly bald, but it was an irregular sort of baldness, as though her hair had been violently ripped off the roots in patches, rather than refusing to regrow on its own. 

He could not look away from her. 

Unlike the instantaneous identification with which he had received Marius, Celine held not a single clue. Yet he recognised her, too. There was the woman, who had saved her husband from three wizards and a beast--another werewolf, one that her brother had brought along to maim or kill Marius and him. There was the woman, so brave and strong. She understood justice, James concluded with a viciousness that he would have deemed aberrant, had he not been choking with rage and grief. She had got her revenge . . .

It was then that it hit him, the untold story of the attack, for another voice--the voice of a young boy whom he loved like a brother--was rising from the depths of memory. _I was only six when it happened. They were disgusted by me. Humiliated to have a foul little cub in their unblemished bloodline_.

“Prongs!” barked a voice suddenly. It came from the direction of the study desk, where James had deposited the two-way mirror. “Are you there? Thought I should check up on you.”

James grabbed the papers and climbed out of bed. He ran from the room and did not stop until he had reached the lake. There, he set them alight, and wished, without daring to act on it, that he, too, could set himself on fire. He hadn’t felt dirtier than this. He hadn’t felt guiltier. How could he claim innocence now? How could he be honourable? How could he be brave, knowing that he had destroyed so many lives just by being born?

If not fire, he thought, then water.

He was soon in the cold, nearly frozen lake, remembering how he had swum on the day of Dorea’s funeral. If the thought of not existing had tantalised him then, it was overpowering him now. _I was a champion swimmer at the Muggle school I went to_ , Marius’s voice drifted past him. _But you told me nothing! James tried to shout back. You told me none of the things I should have known. Now, where are you, you fucking coward?_

_Prongs,_ spoke another voice, _I’m thrilled I met Marius._

_You would hate my mother, though. You would hate her with all your heart._

_I do not know whose he was, nor do I care_ , a woman said soberly. _They are all the same._

_You are wrong, then!_ James screamed, trying to drown the woman’s voice. _WRONG!_

It was all getting to him, the voices and the cold and the irresistible appeal of death. He would lose so much--Charlus, fighting the war, school, his friends, _Sirius_ \--yet he couldn’t go back. James felt his body letting go, the same body which did not deserve its good health, its unmarked skin, and he was thankful for the speedy descent into darkness. He had no right to continue living through that body. 

But another force was clashing with him, attempting to pull him back to the surface. In his delirium, he imagined it was his own shameful body reacting in its struggle to cling to life. He was too weak to fight it.

He felt his back connect with a hard, solid surface. Then a wave of warm, dry air passed over him, forcing him back to consciousness. Sirius’s pale, wet face came into view, wrenched with fear and confusion, and hope.

“You fucking tosser!” said Sirius, pulling James up, and into his arms. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

James held on to the embrace, unable to say the words that hung on his tongue, heavy and ready.   
Instead, he wept, wept, wept until he had no strength left for tears.

**Author's Note:**

> I solemnly swear that I will finish writing the entire thing this month. 6 of the 8 chapters are already ready to go. Hey! That's quite an achievement for me.


End file.
